


A Case of You

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1970s, M/M, Some Drug Use, and lots of sex, and rock 'n' roll, excessive discussion of folk music, folk singer au, it is the '70s after all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 14:07:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2351135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1970s folk singer AU.  Harry's a Bob Dylan-loving hippie from Holmes Chapel, by way of NY.  Louis wears Pink Floyd shirts and skinny jeans and looks like he just walked out of a David Bowie show.  Zayn smokes a lot of grass, Liam is a recovering alcoholic/natural born leader, and Niall really just wants to play Irish folk songs on his mandolin.  They start a band.  It works, until it doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

>   
> _I remember that time you told me you said_  
>  "Love is touching souls," surely you touched mine  
> 'Cause part of you pours out of me  
> In these lines from time to time  
> \- Joni Mitchell, [A Case of You](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/post/98151694158)  
>   
> 
> 
> This is sort of my love song to folk rock music, the glory days of the LA singer-songwriter scene, and the commercialization of that movement. This prologue takes place in 1969 in NY, but the bulk of the fic will take place in 1974-75 in Southern California.
> 
> Most of the music and places talked about are real. I'll be talking a lot about them in my [A Case of You](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/tagged/a-case-of-you) tag on [tumblr](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/). For this prologue, the two songs used are ["If I Had a Hammer"](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/post/98269434258/peter-paul-and-mary-singing-if-i-had-a-hammer) (written by Pete Seeger, sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary) and ["These Times They Are a Changin'"](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/post/98269441063/bob-dylan-singing-these-times-they-are) (Bob Dylan). A lot of this also takes place at [Cafe Wha?](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/post/98269450658/cafe-wha-this-is-the-club-where-harry-and), which was the center of the NY folk scene in this era.

_Greenwich Village, 1969_

“Harry, Harry.”

Harry turns over, burying his head in his pillow and showing his back to Gemma. She kneels on the bed, bouncing lightly and tugging on the long curls at the nape of his neck.

He’s not sure if he’s awake, really, but his head is fuzzy, his eyelashes sticking together with the sand of sleep, and his feet feel numb. That last one might possibly be because Gemma is sitting heavily on his thighs.

“I told you not to fall asleep.” She sighs, long-suffering with her sixteen years. “I knew this would happen.”

It’s really unfair of her, because all he wants to do right now is sleep. Like, he’d give his _Blonde on Blonde_ record to roll over, close his eyes, and forget that this whole day happened. Well, maybe not Dylan, that record’s his favorite at the moment, but, he’d give one of his records. One of the important ones. Because his head is still spinning from gym class, where two of the guys on the football – excuse him, soccer – team laughed his non-regulation white tube socks off the field; or, the lunch room, where he scared away the nice boy from biology by adding ketchup to his cheese sandwich; or, biology itself, where he took charge of dissecting their frog, earning himself a smile from his cute lab partner, only to then scare him away in the lunch room.

American junior high is hard. And all Harry wants to do is sleep it all away.

Gemma, though, seems to have other ideas.

She twists her knee, bony and angular from hours of field hockey practice, digging it into his hipbone. It hurts, a whole hell of a lot, and without thinking about it he cries out, reaching a hand down to slap her away from under his comforter.

“Shh.” She hisses. It’s louder than his own cry and he opens his mouth to tell her so, when her eyes widen and she covers his mouth with her hand. It smells like ivory soap and tobacco. “Don’t wake mom or we’re never getting out of here.”

He licks her palm and she frowns, pulling it back and shaking his cooties off. The tobacco smell lingers on his tongue and he sticks it out, trying to air it out. He doesn’t really think tongues work that way, but it’s worth a try.

Gemma’s still frowning at him. “Gross.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Ow,” and points to where her knee is still pressed painfully into his side.

“Got you up, didn’t it?” She leans in, a prolonged pinch of pain, before she must decide his head is sufficiently cleared and hops off the bed. Harry’s eyes follow her as she makes her way to his closet, her ass swaying in her lilac pantsuit. She’s dressed up, now that Harry things about it, hair falling silky and straight down her back and eyes rimmed in dark eye shadow when she turns to glare at him. “Doesn’t mom ever buy you anything decent?”

His shrug is pretty ineffective against the mattress. He’s never paid a whole lot of attention to what mom buys him. Their trips to the mall are always spent in Larry’s Apple Record Store, talking with Larry – part-time local DJ, part-time album collector, and full-time Harry’s idol – while his mom browses through Gimbels and Sears.

Gemma finally settles on a pair of pink and yellow floral jeans – the only thing he’s ever begged mom to buy him, but hasn’t actually worn out of the house yet – and a simple black button-up. She adds a belt with a heavy silver buckle, the one he stole from their father’s drawer the day he left them, and throws the pile at him.

“Put these on.”

“Fuck, that could have hurt.”

“Language, little brother.”

He sticks his tongue out at her because, really, she’s going to call him out on language when she’s minutes away from sneaking him away to a rally? Sisters.

It’s cold when he unburies himself from his quilt, and his hands shake a little as he does up the shirt. He ducks his head, looking away as he tucks it into the bell-bottoms and threads the belt through the colored belt loops. Now that he’s a little more awake, he remembers what they’re about to do, and with that memory come the mix of nerves and excitement that have been dogging him all day.

He flips his hair, running his hands through it to loosen his curls, before looking up at her from under his fringe. “Good?”

She purses her lips, motioning for him to turn around. He has the distinct feeling that she’s checking him out, or, pretending to be a thirteen-year-old girl checking him out. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it’s a useless exercise.

“Hmm.” She steps forward, reaching out to flick open the first four buttons of his shirt so that it’s hanging open to his belly-button. He resists the urge to cross his arms over his chest.

“Don’t,” she warns, as if she can read his mind. She probably can, if that time he came home to find her reading the particularly buff issue of _Batman_ he had hidden under his pillow is anything to go by.

He feels a little exposed and a lot ridiculous, but he stands still, arms at his sides and skin exposed, as Gemma tuts for a few more seconds, looking more and more like their mother as the line on her forehead deepens. He hopes he doesn’t have a line like that when he’s sixteen.

Finally, she pulls the yellow headband from her hair and settles it in his curls. She futzes for a long moment, pulling bits of hair under the band, brushing others off his forehead, until she sighs happily and steps back. “Perfect.”

“Gemma-”

“Nah uh, no whining, mister. Everyone’s going to be dressed just like you. You’ll fit right in.” She leans forward, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Or out, if that’s what you’d prefer.”

He can feel his cheeks radiating heat as he flushes. He figures he’ll manage the latter, whether he likes it or not. 

He can remember being a regular kid, back in Holmes Chapel. Perhaps a little more charismatic than the other boys, maybe a little more obsessive than them, but, generally, he was a normal kid who played football, played the guitar, and dicked around with his mates. In New York, though, he doesn’t belong anywhere. His accent sticks out at school. At his piano lessons, his teacher scolds him for his long fingers and cuts his fingernails to the quick to make up for it. At the pool, he sits in his lifeguard chair, pale and rod-thin and not quite grown into his feet yet. No amount of headbands or open shirts are going to suddenly make him fit in. 

Not to mention the, uh, other thing. But, he’s not ready to talk about that yet. He’s barely ready to think it.

“Stop that.” Gemma pulls his hand from where he’s been fiddling, self-consciously, with his hair, and wraps her arm around his waist. “You’re going to ruin all my hard work before I even have a chance to take a picture.” She holds up their new Polaroid camera, the one Robin gave her when they got off the plane from London. “Smile.” 

The camera clicks, spitting out the picture, and she shakes it out before tilting it so he can see. They do look pretty good, he agrees, begrudgingly. Kind of like the people he sees in _Rolling Stone_ ads and in the commercials on _Hawaii 5-O_ , whenever he’s allowed to stay up late enough to watch it.

Gemma seems satisfied, too, and she digs around his desk for a black Sharpie. She writes under the picture in big block letters, ‘Harry’s First Protest.’

“There, now it’s documented. In case we get arrested and need proof to convince our grandkids that we were cool back in the ‘ole sixties.”

Harry’s mouth goes dry. “Arrested?”

“Just a joke, geez.” Gemma shrugs. “There’s almost no chance of that.”

Harry doesn’t like the sound of _almost_ , but he’s never backed down from a dare in his life and he’s not going to start now. Besides, if Gemma’s sleazy boyfriend comes through like he promised, there might be a concert at the end of it. Not that Harry has any faith in Peter, but-

A _Bob Dylan Concert_. Harry’s so excited he says the words in all caps in his head, just to hear how they sound. They sound pretty damn great.

“C’mon, H, we’re gonna be late.”

How they can be late to a protest, Harry isn’t really sure. He kind of thought they happened in parades and rallies, things you can come and go from easily. Was counting on it, actually.

Gemma’s already half-way out his window, though, so he doesn’t have a chance to ask before he’s following her out and down the tree that stands just outside his bedroom window. He climbs carefully, aware that Gemma will kill him if he messes up his outfit, and when he hops down the last few steps, Gemma is already at the car, making out with Peter against his flashy-as-shit 1955 sea foam green Cadillac convertible.

It’s gross. The kiss, Peter’s giant hands on Gemma’s waist, the way the car engine revs in response to something Harry’s only read about in the dirty magazines Robin hides in the attic and thinks Harry knows nothing about.

Harry shoves his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders as he makes his way over to them. 

Peter glances up from Gemma’s mouth and sneers. “You brought the kid? What are you, twelve?”

“Thirteen,” Harry bites back as he climbs into the backseat, holding his knees to his chest so that he can fit. Harry’s only met Peter a couple of times, but he’s already more than aware that he’s not Peter’s favorite person. Good thing the feeling’s mutual.

Gemma, though, just hits Peter’s shoulder and jumps over the door to sit in the passenger seat. “Thirteen’s a perfect age. Wasn’t Dr. King always talking about starting people young? Besides, Harry knows more about music than both of us combined.”

Peter snorts.

In the backseat, Harry smirks, where no one can see him. Someday, he’s going to challenge Peter to a musical trivia contest. Harry’s been studying music since before he could walk, and even though he had been forced to leave most of his record collection behind in Holmes Chapel, he’s slowly amassing a new one with the tips he makes at the pool and his mother’s extra clothing money. 

And, since he’s not on the football – soccer, why can’t he get that? – team this year, he spends the bulk of his free time lying on his bed, Koss headphones over his ears, listening to Joan Baez, The Mamas and the Papas, Woody Guthrie, The Beatles. Much to his mother’s consternation, who’s taken to muttering things about _delicate eardrums_ and _boys should be outside_ under her breath every afternoon when he gets home from school. 

“I just got a copy of the Twickenham session.” Harry says, proudly, before adding, in case Peter doesn’t understand the importance of that feat. “You know, from the rehearsals for _Let It Be_? Some of the last recordings the Beatles made as a group. It’s really rare.”

“Music,” Peter says, turning around to look at Harry, “isn’t about collecting albums. It’s about what’s in here.” He taps at Harry’s chest, on the right side of his breastbone. Harry assumes he means his heart and just has terrible grades in anatomy.

It’s stupid, anyway. Harry listens to music with his ears, not his heart.

He crosses his arms, settling back in his seat. “I know that.” Even though something niggles at him, like, maybe Peter has a point. Peter’s an idiot, though, so probably not.

“Peter, can you not?” Gemma complains from the front seat, tugging on Peter’s arm until he turns back around and kisses her again.

There’s a lot of tongue. It’s still gross.

Harry crosses his arms tighter over his chest as Peter finally puts the car in drive and pulls away from the curb.

***

It’s a rally for- well, Harry doesn’t really know what it’s a rally in protest of. On his right, there’s a woman in a baseball cap holding a sign that says _Students Against the War_ , chanting “tell me what a feminist looks like, this is what a feminist looks like” in his ear. On his left, there’s a man, tall, with a beer-belly and a shining gold nose ring, chanting about the War in Vietnam while waving a pro-Marijuana bandana.

On the nightly news, Walter Cronkite’s been talking about the lack of focus in the counterculture movements. Harry hadn’t really understood it, until now. But, he likes it. It’s unique, different, confused, and Harry likes unique, different, and confused. He relates to it.

“Here.” Gemma shoves a _Stop the War!_ sign into Harry’s hands. The exclamation point is wide and loopy, and he asks the woman in the baseball cap if he can borrow her marker.

“Sure, kid. This your first protest?”

Harry opens the marker, holding the top between his teeth as he shades in the exclamation point with dark red strokes, so his words are a little muffled around it. “How could you tell?”

“Only amateurs don’t come prepared.”

He feels stupid. He doesn’t like being bad at things, and he didn’t know that protests were even something you could be bad at. “Ah, yeah. I’ll be better prepared, next time.” He holds out the marker.

“Nah, you keep it.” She winks at him. “A souvenir.”

And, okay, she wasn’t trying to make him feel bad. He’s too sensitive, always has been. “Thanks.” Harry finds himself smiling, really smiling, for one of the first times since he left England. Maybe there are some nice people in America.

“No problem, kid. Enjoy yourself, and get in lots of trouble.” She throws a wave as she lets herself get swept up in the crowd that’s beginning to march.

Harry turns his head, finding Gemma and Peter behind him, talking with a group of older kids, who must be Peter’s friends from NYU. He’s holding one of the _Students Against the War_ signs, as if he’s trying to drive home his age and stature, as if he has something to prove. At a peaceful protest. Harry hates un-genuine people.

Gemma, though, waves him over with her _We Are the 51% Minority_ sign. “Thought I’d lost you already.”

“Nah.” Harry smiles. “Just making friends.”

The smile she gives him is so big, so real, that Harry feels bad for hating it here. He hasn’t meant to take it out on her, but he’s not gonna lie and say that he hasn’t spent many nights lying awake, listening to Dylan or Peter, Paul, and Mary, resenting Gemma for the easy time she’s had of it. And it’s not like she hasn’t abandoned him for Peter. Maybe this protest thing will be good for all of them.

He holds up his sign and joins in with the “end the nuclear race, not the human race” chant that’s started up around them.

***

Gemma wraps her fingers around Harry’s arm, a reminder that she’s there as much as a way to get his attention as she points at a sign to their left. “Look at that one.”

Harry follows her gaze, and has to stifle a laugh in his free elbow. _Pro Dog_ , the sign exclaims with a hastily drawn stick figure of a dog with long, loopy ears.

“Who isn’t?”

Gemma laughs. “Beats me.”

Harry scans the crowd, looking for another strange one, before lighting on a _Who Farted?_ sign, carried steady and high by a severe looking woman in an all-black ensemble and sunglasses perched on her head, even though it’s pushing 10 pm. “There,” he points to Gemma.

“Oh my god.” She bends over in laughter, and Harry joins her, feeling light and open, a little bad about laughing at a peace rally, but more just happy. They stumble for a few steps, heads bent together, laughing into each others’ air, until they realize how far they’re lagging and run to catch up with Peter’s group.

They spend the rest of the walk pointing out their favorites.

_Happy St. Patrick’s Day_

_I’m So Angry I Made A Sign_

_UFO’s Are Real & The Government Knows It!_ Harry likes that one, a lot, and, when he points it out to Gemma, he must stare a little too long, because the woman carrying it stares him down.

“You got a problem with my sign?”

“Ahh, no, I-” Harry holds up his own sign protectively. “I like it, I just- Can I-?” He holds out his hand for it.

She squints her eyes at him, as if she’s trying to determine his soul’s intentions on his skin. Maybe Gemma was right to spend so much time on finding him the right clothes, though, because, eventually, she nods, clearly having found what she was looking for.

“Thanks,” he says, sincerely, as he accepts the sign. He holds his own between his knees as he digs around his back pocket for the red marker. “I’m Harry.”

“Bea.”

“Nice to meet you.” He finishes his drawing and holds it out so they both can see. It’s quick, a little rough, the edges of the spaceship unsteady and the alien is waving three hands and two antenna. Not his best work, but Harry kinda likes it.

“Hey, cool.” Bea accepts the sign back, before reaching out to ruffle Harry’s hair. “You’re a good kid.”

“Ahh.” Her eyes are kind of dark and he swallows. He doesn’t want anything more than a verbal thank you, and he’s pretty sure that, if he sticks around for much longer, he’ll get more. “Thanks. I’ve, ahh, my sister-” He points in Gemma’s general direction.

Bea waves her sign at him, now sufficiently illustrated, and Harry slips back to their group. Gemma nods to where Harry left Bea. “That your work?”

Harry glances back at it. It looks pretty rad, if he does say so. “Yep.”

“Knew those long afternoons with the sketchpad would get you somewhere.”

Harry smiles, absently tracing the top of his left wrist, where he really wants his art to come to fruition. He doesn’t say anything, though. Gemma’s cool, she’s always had his back, pushed him to do new things, to explore who he is. Hell, she bought him his first record, a beat up copy of _Help!_ she found at the thrift store in Cheshire when he was eight years old. She had even let him listen to it on her record player, laid out on his back on her floor long past his bedtime.

Ink, though. Ink is personal, permanent, important. Harry wants to be sure, before he mentions it, even to Gemma.

So, he doesn’t mention it. Just like he doesn’t point out the signs that really catch his eye. The ones that make him want to cry rather than laugh, the ones that fill him with second-hand frustration and rage, things he doesn’t quite, yet, understand or know what to do with. All he knows is that he’s drawn to them, with some buried, foundational part of himself. 

_Stonewall Means Fight Back_

_I Am a Lesbian and I Am Beautiful_

_Gay, Proud, and Angry_

_Gay is Good. Gay is Great._

And, while the rest of this protest feels a little silly, a little more like a playful airing of grievances than a full-blown rally, when he sees those signs he gets it. The feeling of solidarity, the need to fight back, en masse, against something real and concrete. It’s a powerful feeling.

So, Harry makes note of them. For later. When he’s old enough to sort out all those emotions. When he’s old enough to do something about them.

“Hey, Harry.” Peter pulls him out of his thoughts, reaching around Gemma to push at Harry’s shoulder. “Look at that one.”

Peter’s smirking, which never bodes well for Harry. He doesn’t want to look, but, his curiosity always gets the best of him. Every damn time. So, he turns to read this sign.

_I’d Rather Touch Myself Than Little Children_

Harry thinks he ducks his head quick enough for no one to catch the way he blushes, all the way from his belly button to his ears. Damn Gemma and her open shirts.

“Peter, come on man. He’s a little young for that one, don’t you think?” Peter’s friend – Eric? Aaron? – asks. Harry’s not sure if he’s taking the piss, but when Harry glances over, his brow is furrowed. Definitely a real, serious, question then.

Harry’s blush deepens. Damn him. Peter’s friend is fit, all dirty blond hair and blue eyes, wearing a Byrds shirt that pulls across his chest and stretches over his biceps. The last thing Harry wants is to feel even younger around him. 

Gemma laughs. “Not if you ask his sock drawer.”

Harry stares at her in mortification. He had thought he was being subtle, and why is she paying attention to that stuff, anyway? He’s never touching himself again. Except, maybe, behind the bleachers after gym class. That’s probably safe. And in the school bathroom, when he stays late for bio lab and there’s no one else around. That should be okay.

Fuck his life.

Harry feels a heavy arm around his shoulders and he looks up to see Eric/Aaron/too-fit-to-care-about-his-name winking down at him. “Dirty running shorts work great. They hide everything.”

His breath is warm against Harry’s neck, the words smooth and slippery in his ear, and Harry has to fight against his dick as he nods and swallows. “Thanks.”

He squeezes Harry’s shoulder and lets go. Shame. “No problem, little bro.”

Harry can’t decide if his life sucks more or less than it did ten minutes ago. Is what it is, he supposes.

Besides, they’ve finally reached the rally point, and Gemma reaches out to wrap her fingers around Harry’s wrist, pulling him to a small spot to the left of the stage, where, if he stands on his tiptoes, leaning on Gemma’s shoulders for support, he can see the folk cover band. They’re not as good as Peter, Paul, and Mary, but they’re pretty damn awesome. 

Harry’s spent a lot of time listening to music in the privacy of his or Gemma’s rooms. Or, at the most, listening to Frank Sinatra in the living room, giggling behind his hand as his mom and Robin try something approaching a waltz, tripping over their feet and laughing in each others’ arms.

“You don’t have dancing genes,” his mother would tell him, looking over at his and Gemma’s grinning faces. “But Styles, we know how to love.”

Harry’s taken those words to heart. Or, he hopes to. Someday.

So, Harry knows a lot about listening to music privately, and it holds nothing on listening with so many people. Hundreds of people, singing the words, yelling them out as the band leads the chorus of protesters. Their voices ring out over the assembly, guitars cutting through the friendly chatter, and Harry sees, in a flash, how protests work. He sees change, community, the flow of ideas through music. He feels it in his blood, a kinship, drawing him closer to these strangers than he ever has been to anyone and, suddenly, the rally feels cohesive, harmonized, thrumming through his bones in perfect time. 

_Well, I’ve got a hammer, and I’ve got a bell._

The singer points to the crowd, and Harry belts out, his voice joining Gemma’s and Peter’s, Bea’s and the guy’s with the marijuana bandana. 

_And I’ve got a song to sing, all over this land.  
It’s the hammer of justice, it’s the bell of freedom._

Harry wraps his arm around the man next to him, a slight, middle aged man, with a balding spot on the back of his head. The female lead singer points the microphone at the crowd and voices swell together, _It’s a song about love between my brothers and my misters, all over this land._

He throws his head back, joining the rally and the band as they finish out the song.

_It’s the hammer of justice, it’s the bell of freedom_  
It’s a song about love between my brothers and my sisters,  
All over this land. 

Gemma glances over at him as she holds out the last note, tears shimmering at the edge of her eyes as she leans over and presses a long, gentle kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you,” he mouths at her.

She grins, squeezing the back of his neck. “I love you, H.”

***

Harry holds tight to Gemma’s sleeve as they push through the throngs of the rally, ducking out onto MacDougal Street. The early morning air is crisp against Harry’s heated skin, smelling of apples and leaves, bakeries already preparing onion bagels and brewing burned Arabic coffee for morning commuters, cigarettes and piss and Jack Daniels. It’s fall in New York, and Harry pauses, just for a moment, to close his eyes and imagine, for a brief second, that the smells on the wind, the orange lights of the street lamps and the sounds of catcalls and the subway clanging under his feet, that’s it’s all for him. That he is New York City in a way he never really will be.

“Haz, come on.” Gemma pulls at his wrist, wrapping her fingers around his pressure point and tugging.

He stumbles into her back, clammy with sweat that’s both hers and everyone else’s, her dirty-blond hair clinging to his nose as he laughs, giddy and surreal, standing in the middle of MacDougal Street, feeling such a sense of history and connection and destiny. “Do you know-?” He asks, having to laugh, incredulously for a moment. “Do you know who else has stood, like, right here?”

Gemma laughs, her mouth wide and red, just like their mother’s. “No. I have no idea.”

“Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor.”

“Oh, I like him. He’s funny.”

“Gem-”

“Harry,” she parrots, but she’s still smiling at him.

He sighs. “Nothing, just-” There’s a woman on the sidewalk next to him, bent over a _Lesbians Are Citizens Too_ sign. Harry can’t look away. “Do you believe in fate?”

She pulls him under her arm, away from the woman and the sign, from his thoughts and his spot, frozen, in the middle of the street. People are streaming out of the rally, pushing and pulling around them like ants on LSD, and she holds him close as they make their way to Cafe Wha? “Like, do I believe that, someday, you’ll be on that list?”

Harry feels himself flush at the implication. “No, no, not like, not like _that_ , but, maybe, that I’ll do something good, too? Like, make music that means something?”

“I have no doubt that you’ll do something special.”

She has to say that, she’s his sister. It feels pretty great, anyway.

They circle around the back of the club, past the line of patrons stretched around the block to get in, to where Peter’s chatting with the backstage security guy. He’s a friend of Peter’s from university, has the same cut of his jaw, the same macho way of standing with his knees spread wider than, Harry assumes with a quick glance at the guy’s crotch, they need to be. Harry would dislike him already, if he wasn’t ushering their group inside.

“Try,” Peter says, as Harry ducks under his arm to get in, “not to embarrass me, yeah?”

“Only if you promise not to open your mouth and let anyone hear that cat wail you call a voice,” Harry bites back.

Peter might say something back, or Gemma might manage to restrain him, Harry has no idea. He’s too entranced by the club as they get to the bottom of the stairs and step into the large, open room. It’s spare, the walls exposed brick, bare of pictures or memorabilia. The room is filled with rickety wooden tables, benches, and chairs, all crowded with young people, dressed in denim and floral headbands, women with long, straight hair and men with long curls and unkempt beards.

Rally signs are stacked against the sound equipment lining the small, slightly-raised stage, and Harry grabs his and Gemma’s, adding them to the mix. It feels cohesive, good, like Harry’s a part of something, like the rally has, finally, managed to cohere down here in this historic club.

They find a table for four and squeeze eight around it, all standing and swaying to the duo on stage. Harry doesn’t know them but they’re good, clearly hired to rev the crowd between the rally and Dylan’s arrival.

“Drinks?” Peter’s friend asks, pointing around the circle, and Harry doesn’t protest when he comes back with a bottle of whiskey and eight plastic cups.

The first sip burns going down and he coughs, tears threatening at the corners of his eyes, and he tries to cover his discomfort by taking another, much longer, swallow. It’s a terrible idea, as ideas go. Now his throat and his lungs hurt, and he’s coughing into his hand with small, hitching, chest-deep coughs.

“I’m just gonna-” He waves, vaguely, to the back of the club, where he assumes the restrooms are.

The place is crowded, and it gets worse as he inches his way around the bar, pressing against peoples’ backs and tripping over their converse sneakers and polka-dot platform shoes. He keeps his head down, hunched over his cup, still coughing a little and trying to stem it with small, smoother sips of the whiskey.

He doesn’t notice the kid at the end of the bar, nursing a whiskey sour with the same, careful sips. He’s a couple years older, hair swept over his forehead and spiked at the back of his neck, dressed in a red Led Zeppelin shirt hanging loose over tight black jeans. His fingers are long and thin, clutched tightly around his drink to keep them from shaking, his striking blue eyes holding the same awe as Harry’s are.

Harry keeps his head down, though, his eyes still a little watery and his neck sweating along the collar of his button-up. 

In the bathroom, he sprays cold water on his face, his neck, and his ankles. He feels his body temperature settle as he wipes his hands on the knees of his jeans and heads back to the table.

“Good,” Gemma says, smiling at him as he squeezes next to her. “You’re just in time.”

She nods to the stage, where Cafe Wha?’s owner, Manny Roth, is stepping up to the mic. He taps it, before clearing his throat. “Thank you all for coming to the rally tonight. New York appreciates your support. Our closing act needs no introduction. Please welcome Mr. Bob Dylan.”

Harry hears the harmonica before he sees Dylan. Piercing and melodic, it sounds like Americana, the very roots of folk music, like he dug down deep and found musical inspiration in the center of the earth. Harry’s hands feel dirty, gritty, stained with history, just from hearing it.

He realizes, rather quickly, that he’s never actually listened to music before. Not like this. Not with his whole body, from his ankles to his collarbone, the lyrics reverberating off his skin, his lungs, his knees. No amount of lying on his bed, volume jacked into his headphones, could prepare him for experiencing songs like this.

Harry’s fingers itch for a guitar. His throat struggles not to sing. His shoulders sway, in time with Dylan’s strumming. Fuck Peter for being right about something, because Harry realizes, in an instant, that he’s been listening to music with his mind when he should be experiencing it with his whole being.

It doesn’t take Harry long to make up his mind. It’s a short set, four songs to cap an already packed night. But, by the time Dylan reaches the encore, a perfectly fitting rendition of “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Harry finds himself singing along, under his breath. 

_Come writers and critics, who prophesize with your pen_  
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again  
And don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin  
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming  
For the loser now will be later to win  
For the times, they are a-changin’ 

As he sings along it feels like a promise, a decision to give his life to this. To making music, to making this kind of music, folksy and earthy and important. 

“Glad you came?” Gemma asks, as they make their way back to Peter’s car after the show. The sun is just rising in the alleyways between the buildings, and Harry has to squint as he climbs into the backseat.

“Life changing,” he admits, and it feels inadequate as he pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin on them. 

He feels light enough to blow away in the light morning breeze as they climb back up the tree by Harry’s bedroom window. Gemma lingers just long enough to give him one, quick, sweaty hug.

“Thank you,” he whispers, still a little awed by all of it.

She ruffles his hair, her fingers tightening around the curls at his neck before pulling away. She turns in the doorway and winks at him before disappearing into her own room.

When he turns to get into bed, he catches sight of the polaroid lying on his desk. It’s strange, Harry thinks, that he looked exactly the same a few hours ago, when he let Gemma pull him out of bed and dress him in floral bell-bottoms. He doesn’t feel the same at all.

He picks up the Sharpie and adds, under Gemma’s ‘Harry’s first protest,’ in dark, unwavering lettering, ‘+ first time mtg Bob Dylan.’ He pins it to his bulletin board, next to his latest grade report and half under a diagram of the most common guitar chords, where his mom won’t find it next time she’s picking up after him.

***

“See,” he tells his mom, three years later when he leaves home to hitchhike across the country rather than attend university, digging through his bulletin board to find the picture. It’s faded, the colors in Gemma’s pant suit less vibrant and Harry’s expression a little blurred, but he handles it gently as he hands it to his mom. “I’m going to do something important.”

She stares at the picture, tracing Harry’s image with her fingertip. “I know, sweetie. I’ve always known.”

“About-?”

“About this?” She waves the picture. “Yes.”

“How did you-? We snuck out.”

She shakes her head, smiling through her quiet, simple tears. “You were never as subtle as you thought you were.”

Harry gapes at her. If she knew about that, she might know about all the nights after when he snuck away to Case Wha? She might even know about the time with Gary from biology and- He takes a deep breath. No use working himself up during his last few moments home.

“I’ve always known that you were going to do something important, love. Ever since you were a little boy.”

“Thanks, mum.”

She pulls him into a hug, wiping her eyes behind his embrace, before she pulls back and hands him his bag. “You’ll be safe, won’t you? And call? Whenever you can.”

“All the time,” he agrees.

“Good, then, you best be off, before I start proper crying.”

Harry doesn’t want to go as much as wants to, but he forces himself to shoulder his duffle bag, blow her a kiss, and walk out the screened front door.

When he’s gone, she tapes the picture to the refrigerator door. It eases, a little, the throb of missing him every time she sees it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! For the prologue, at least. I've been working on this fic for a while now, and I'm so glad that I finally get to share it. I hope you're enjoying it so far.
> 
> If you wanna chat about these silly boys, folk music, or anything else, please comment here or find me on [tumblr](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/)! I'll be sharing all kinds of pictures and songs and fic snippets there, so come follow me.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Which is when Harry sees him. All blue eyes and languid limbs, hands stuffed into the pockets of his denim jacket. His left foot is resting casually against the loading dock, knee pulled up, thigh muscles taut. He’s wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt, the one with the triangle off the new album – the one Harry wishes he was cool enough to remember the name of - hanging loose over a pair of black skin-tight jeans. He looks like he walked out of a David Bowie concert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now the real fun begins. This chapter was originally based on Jackson Browne's [Rosie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZBSQG6hWVI). It's changed a lot since then, but, the roots are still there.
> 
> The songs features in this chapter are Jackson Browne's [These Days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcJDI7a_1lk) and Bob Dylan's [Girl From the North Country](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fyO1jfSYUc) (sorry for the low quality, but this is a beautiful version).

_Santa Barbara, CA, 1974_

“Shit, Haz.” Zayn grumbles, as the VW teeters over a speed bump and he falls over, banging his head against the side of the van. 

Glancing into the rearview mirror, Harry watches as Liam braces one hand over Zayn’s head and the other on the side of the car, bracketing Zayn with his body. Harry feels kinda guilty for rattling his bandmates just hours before a gig, until Zayn bends his head, using the opportunity to fix his faux Mohawk. 

Harry didn’t actually bruise him, then, just his style. Harry feels a lot less guilty about that. He stifles a laugh into his shoulder before straightening his voice. “Sorry.”

“Sure, sure.” Zayn catches Harry’s eyes in the mirror and pouts, the effects undermined by the bright smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Harry shakes his head with as much disapproval as he can manage. Musicians.

“Either of you could drive at any time.” 

Silence. About right, that.

Harry turns his eyes back to the road, just in time for another speed bump. This time he remembers to call out a, “hold on,” before he eases the VW bus over the bump. It sways on two wheels for a moment, before crashing back down onto all four. 

Harry’s been advocating for a new tour bus for months. Every time he asks, though, Rebel Records throws back, “Bring us a hit record and we’ll talk,” just like they do whenever the band requests anything that would require them to sign over a check. As if Rebel thinks they can make them into a proper band without putting some money down first.

Idiots.

Although – and not that Harry would ever, ever admit it to anyone – he can’t really blame Rebel. Not with the band’s track record for half-sold shows and failed demos. Lots of them. Like, upwards of 23 – is it 24 now? Harry ceded count to Liam a few months ago – demos delivered to the Rebel offices on Sunset Boulevard and- nothing. Notta. Nilch.

Well, not nothing. They get official letters each time, addressed to their P.O. Box in downtown Santa Barbara. The first few were long-winded descriptions of their lack of timing, the lightness of their harmonies, pointed directives for more upbeat and pop-y choruses. Now, though, they’re lucky to get a sentence:

“Not a hit.”

“More. More spice, more guitar, more voice.” Which is two sentences, so, progress?

Or, Harry’s favorite, “Listen to _Abbey Road_. Album enclosed. Don’t come back until you are the Beatles.”

Harry’s pretty sure that Niall wrote that last one himself, but has never been able to prove it.

At least he’s able to laugh at them now, though. He expects them, looks forward to them, almost. Zayn has even started using them for an artful collage on the inside of the equipment van. It’s quite beautiful, in Harry’s unbiased opinion.

And he hasn’t actually cried since the first one. Their first one together, as a full band, back when Rebel had bothered to call them in to the office for a one-on-one chat-slash-tear-down-session. Harry had spent the meeting biting his lip, the edges of his eyes twitching in time with his knee, and, when they were finally done, he had run straight for a pay phone. Called Gemma, tears already spilling down his cheeks, raving about the injustices of the music industry and the brilliance of their band, and how, if the producers don’t get that, maybe he should take his shitty voice and his shitty guitar and move back to their mom’s place in NY. It had taken Gemma two nickels and Harry’s last dime to talk him down.

Looking back, it was an incredibly embarrassing, immature response. Which, of course, is why Gemma will never let him live it down. But, whatever, he’s a dramatic guy. He likes his emotions; doesn’t understand them all the time, but he likes them. They make him a good writer, right? 

That’s what all the singer-songwriters say, anyway. Like that new Jackson Browne song, _to live the life that I have made in song_. He should really make Gemma listen to it next time he sees her.

And, speaking of- Harry reaches over to turn up the dial on the stereo.

“This is KMET 94.7, LA’s Mighty Met of rock ‘n’ roll. Next up is LA’s own Jackson Browne, playing his latest single, ‘These Days.’”

“Ahh, this is a good one. Turn it up.” In the mirror, Zayn grins, settling against Liam’s shoulder. His hair disaster has, apparently, been diverted. 

Harry turns up the volume, rests his elbow out the open window, and hums along.

_Well I’ve been out walking_  
I don’t do that much talking, these days  
These days- 

***

They pull up to the back of the Arlington Theatre about fifteen minutes later than planned. Which, honestly, is what Harry calls progress. 

Not progress enough, though, because Steve is already there, sitting on the hood of his 1952 Camaro, the Rebel Records label painted in perfect white lines on the side. Their manager – slash - label-mandated babysitter. Shit.

Harry lets “These Days” play out before he turns off the car and jumps out. He feels warm, a little dusty, definitely windblown, and he drops his head, running his hands through his hair before throwing it back and pushing his fringe off his forehead.

He ignores Steve as he walks toward them. “You’re late.”

“Are we?” Zayn asks, at the same time as Harry shrugs, “Only 15 minutes.”

“Progress,” Liam adds, for effect, and Harry loves him more than ever.

Steve strips his expensive sunglasses off his head, lets them dangle from his fingertips as he glares at them. “Where’s the Irish one?”

Harry glances behind him, unnecessarily. Niall’s in the equipment bus, which is a year or so past some muffler repairs that leave it hopping and popping and chugging when it drives. “He was right behind us.”

“Boys, I know that being a rock star is cool, but, it takes work. Hard work. You can’t just roll out of bed and show up at a gig half-cocked and-”

Harry could repeat Steve’s speech in his sleep. In fact, it makes regular appearances in his dreams. Generally in the bad ones. The ones where he’s running as fast as he can, sweating, panting and clammy, only a few yards ahead of Steve’s speech. Like, literally, the words, 3D versions of them in that straight, white, Rebel Records lettering. It’s terrifying.

So, Harry tunes Steve out, using the time to look around for Niall, who was actually supposed to be right behind them.

Which is when Harry sees him.

All blue eyes and languid limbs, hands stuffed into the pockets of his denim jacket. His left foot is resting casually against the loading dock, knee pulled up, thigh muscles taut. He’s wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt, the one with the triangle off the new album – the one Harry wishes he was cool enough to remember the name of - hanging loose over a pair of black skin-tight jeans. He looks like he walked out of a David Bowie concert.

Harry reaches up, fingering the daisy tucked behind his ear. Niall put it there earlier that afternoon, pulling Harry close and murmuring, “Good look before the show, curly,” and Harry loves it. He also kind of wishes, though, that the Led Zeppelin shirt Gemma gave him for Christmas last year wasn’t balled up in his tent as a makeshift pillow.

Harry is half a step from going over to him, from saying- well, what he’s going to say, he has no idea, but something sweet and incredibly awkward, most likely. It’s probably a blessing that Niall pulls into the lot before Harry can make a move, van wheezing and popping and Irish folk tunes blaring out the open windows, splitting through Steve’s lecture.

“Hey, mate.” Niall barely waits for the engine to stop before he jumps out, pulling open the back doors and motioning to Harry. “Help me with these?”

“’Course.” Harry jogs over, more aware than he ever has been of his ass and his thighs as he moves. It’s awkward to walk, when he’s thinking about walking. 

It’s all for naught anyway as, when he glances over his shoulder, the boy is gone.

Harry tries not to be too disappointed. He was probably just a fan, hoping to get one of Niall’s guitar picks. Or, more likely, a junkie looking for a fix, chased off by their semi-official entourage.

Harry’s absolutely sure, though, that he fails on the disappointment front. Especially when Niall bumps his shoulder, grinning the way he always is before a gig. “Hey, Hazza, you with me?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” It’s only a tiny bit of a lie. Barely counts.

***

The Arlington Theatre is beautiful. It’s an old movie palace, complete with Greco-Roman statues made with plaster-of-paris and something that looks like paper mache, molded into artfully placed grape leaves. Harry stands next to one of them as they enter the theatre, folding his hands between his legs and adopting the same far off, slightly dazed look of the soldier.

“Need a few more muscles, Haz,” Liam pats him on the shoulder, comfortingly. “Also a few less clothes.”

“The clothes I can work with.”

“Please don’t,” Zayn groans and Harry pulls up his shirt, flashing all four of his nipples. Zayn buries his head in Liam’s shoulder and Liam places a soothing arm around his waist as he throws Harry a grin.

“Boys, boys, we have a concert to perform, not a vaudeville routine.” Steve clears his throat, his deep, sharp American accent filling the corners of the hallway.

“Yes, sir,” Harry says, smartly, snapping his hand in a salute before grabbing the guitar cases he was carrying and slipping inside before Steve can reprimand him more. 

As they’re stationed in Santa Barbara, the Arlington is their hometown theatre and they’ve played here often enough that Harry does most of the set up on autopilot. They’re a small operation. Just the band and Steve and, sometimes, Steve’s nephew, who is good at lifting amps and terrible at using them. Harry doesn’t mind, though, playing equipment manager and part-time sound engineer; it keeps him busy, out of his thoughts and the nerves that always plague him before a show.

He does have some help from the Everett brothers, who come around every time they’re in Santa Barbara in exchange for a meal and a six-pack, and Harry leaves the big stuff to them as he focuses on the more personal of their equipment. It’s quick work, and he has all their guitars and Niall’s uds, mandolins, and ukuleles unpacked and on-stage in record time and is just finishing up with the theatre’s lighting engineers when the Everetts roll the baby grand on stage.

“Just remember to dim the blue light on ‘Sweet Summer’ and we’ll all go home happy, yeah?” Harry claps them on the engineer on the shoulder, before turning to the Everett brothers. “Go, take a break- I’m pretty sure there’s pizza back stage. I’ve got the rest of this.”

He doesn’t wait for a response before jogging to the stage. The lights dim, just high enough for him to see a couple feet around him and shadows and shapes beyond, and he settles onto the piano bench, running his fingers gently over the keys. 

This is his favorite time of every gig. When Zayn and Liam are backstage with hair and make-up, Niall is ensconced in his room listening to fiddle music really loudly, and the Everett brothers are outside, smoking away the hours until they have to pack-up again. It’s quiet, peaceful, and Harry gets lost in all of this, the life he’s always wanted and the life he, almost, has gotten.

He closes his eyes, settling his hands over the keys, and plays. It’s a new song, something he wrote on their last long trip up Highway 1 to San Francisco, and it’s still a little choppy, rough, bleeding through with the sadness and desire that is usually dampened during the editing process. 

It’s a song about a boy Harry loved, once. Or, well, thought he had loved, turns out not so much.

He had come from Ohio or Nebraska or Idaho or something equally all-American, looking for fame and fortune, and had found Harry and his new little flat overlooking Santa Monica Boulevard. They had spent the first few weeks of Harry’s LA life wrapped in sun and blankets, eating convenience store crisps and boxed Mac ‘n Cheese, listening to the Byrds, Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel. Until, one day, the boy was gone, left a note, ‘gone to find my dreams.’ 

Last thing Harry heard, he was starring in Trident commercials. Those stupid ones, where the camera lingers on shiny, perfect, white teeth. No one’s teeth are that white. Not if they’re actually real teeth and, ugh, Harry shudders at that, his teeth giving little, sympathetic pulses even as he sings about it. 

Harry had thought that he was in love. Until Liam found him two weeks later and he traded love for music, LA for Santa Barbara, his flat for a tent on the beach, and never looked back.

Now, with the lights low and his eyes closed, he can almost imagine what it would be like if this place was filled; if they were a proper band, with promo and real, intimate, Joni-Mitchell-type songs that they wrote themselves. 

And it’s not that Rebel’s a bad label, not really. They did sign Harry and Liam when the Troubadour wouldn’t even let them play a Hoot Night. It’s just- well, Rebel has a vision for the band, and Harry knows they’ve produced hits and they’ve made stars, but if Harry were surer of himself and his musical opinions, he’d say it’s the wrong vision.

So, in an hour or so, they’ll play to half a crowd that knows a quarter of their music. But right here, for these few minutes, Harry can close his eyes, imagine a crowd full of smiling faces, screaming his name, screaming Niall’s and Liam’s and Zayn’s, singing along with them, and holding out their hands for the guitar picks and flowers Harry’d pull out of his hair and throw to them.

“Just a boy, gone to find his dreams,” Harry finishes, fading out as his fingers slow on the keys. 

There’s absolute quiet, just the echoes of Harry’s voice bouncing off the balcony.

And then a loud, slow, rhythmic clapping, and Harry’s eyes fly open. He scans the dark theatre, before finally lighting on the boy from earlier, standing at the back of the orchestra section. 

Which is weird. No one’s supposed to come in or out of the Arlington until an hour or so before the show. That’s Steve’s self-appointed job. Not that they really have fans so desperate to see them that they try to sneak in during sound check.

Harry waves, before dropping his hand, awkwardly, back to the keys because, honestly, he has no idea why that seemed like an appropriate response.

The boy grins, clapping one more time before he jogs down the aisle, jumps onto the stage, and slides onto the piano bench next to Harry. He overshoots a bit, falling, gracelessly, into Harry’s side, and Harry stumbles, reaching out to catch himself on the hood of the piano, and gives the boy a little smile.

“Oops, ahh, sorry. Hi,” he apologizes.

The boy tilts his head, grinning and settling himself more firmly on the bench, thigh pressed against Harry’s, and holds out his hand. “Hi. I’m Louis.”

“Harry.”

“You’re pretty good.”

“Nah.” Harry ducks his head. “But, thanks.”

Harry can feel the swish of Louis’ denim jacket against the cotton of his yellow tunic as he shrugs.

“So, ah, how did you get in here?”

Louis kicks his legs against the bench, white Chucks scraping against the peeling black paint. His feet don’t quite reach the floor. “Your security is pretty loose.”

“We don’t have security.”

“Loose, see?” Louis opens his hands wide and Harry laughs.

“Gotta be famous to have security.”

Louis reaches into his pocket, pulling out a flyer. It’s a list of the acts playing at the Arlington over the next few weeks. One Direction isn’t, like, the biggest name, but it does have a prominent position halfway down on the left side. “Name’s on the marquee. Always figured I’d made it when that happened.”

“Me too.” Harry shrugs. “Turns out it doesn’t quite work like that.”

“Well, it brought me in, anyway. And I’m all that matters, so-”

His confidence startles a laugh and a second look out of Harry, who glances down at the way Louis’ knee, clad in tight black denim, is pressing into Harry’s, just on this side of consciously.

“And, since I’m here early-”

“- uninvited.”

“- you should play me something special. Just for us.”

Louis’ smile starts in his eyes, and the word ‘us’ shivers down Harry’s spine to curl in his toes. “I don’t- the rest of the lads are backstage and I don’t usually, like, on my own-”

“You were singing when I came in.” Louis motions to the door where, Harry suddenly realizes, he must have been standing for most of the song. “I reckon you’re a proper singer-songwriter.”

The way he says it – like it’s the holy grail of LA musicians, and like Harry, without a doubt, fits that category – makes Harry warm and shy, aware of every inch of Louis pressed against him, the tone of his voice, the way he smiles. And Harry doesn’t want this to end, doesn’t want to send this boy – so carefree and open and complimentary – away, so, with a heavy sigh, he lines his fingers up on the keys.

“Sing along, yeah?” Because Harry knows, with an unusual level of certainty, that Louis isn’t just a fan. He can sing, wouldn’t be here otherwise, and Harry knows, just from looking at the desperation in Louis’ body, that he’s here for the very same reasons Harry is. And, if Harry’s right, if Louis’ voice, so soft and pure and deeply accented when he talks, wraps around a lyric the way Harry imagines it, Louis can’t just sing. He can _sing_. 

Harry picks a version of “Girl from the North Country” that he’s been playing with off-and-on since he was fourteen. It’s a little quicker than the original, and he’s added a few elements, mostly CSNY-inspired chord progressions and a country-esque twist to the end of each line, but, otherwise, keeps it simple enough for Louis to catch on.

It takes two verses, but then Louis adds his left hand to the piano, and octave above Harry’s. He harmonizes with the keys before, finally, in the final verse, harmonizing with his voice.

 _So if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair_  
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline  
Remember me to one who lives there  
She once was a true love of mine 

The only thing that keeps Harry from stopping, from just sitting there and admiring Louis’ voice and his words and how quickly he fits his hands and his words in and around Harry’s, is how beautiful they sound together. Not just Harry, and not just Louis, but both of them, together, making music the way Harry imagined it, that first night he listened to Bob Dylan sing live.

Louis adds a quick, high-pitched trill on the keys at the end, before clapping vigorously, the movement of his arms shaking Harry’s body, the sound echoing around the theatre, filling it with applause. For him, for them.

Harry feels on top of the world.

“You’re really good,” he says, ducking his head over the keys, his hair falling past his headband and into his eyes.

Louis stops clapping, reaching up to adjust the daisy behind Harry’s ear. “Nah, you’re brilliant, mate.”

“You really liked it?” Harry asks, because he likes to push - never, really, has learned to stop - and he hasn’t played that rearrangement for anyone before.

“Liked it?” Louis’ eyes are wide and impossibly blue. “It was brilliant.” He leans forward, conspiratorially, his breath warm on Harry’s neck and Harry suppresses another shiver. “Better than Dylan.”

Harry can’t suppress the way his mouth falls open as he turns his head, looking up at Louis. “Impossible.”

Louis shrugs. “I’m never wrong.” Harry shakes his head, but Louis just nods, his smile crinkling at the corners of his mouth, cocky and sure. “It’s my thing.”

Harry laughs at that, smiling hard enough to dimple the corners of his mouth, and he doesn’t miss the way Louis’ smile softens. Recklessly, he asks, before he can think it through, “Do you want to watch the show with the crew tonight?” He motions to the left wing of the stage. “The view isn’t great, but the acoustics are amazing.”

“I don’t have a ticket.”

Harry bites his lip, then pulls the ‘Band’ pass from around his neck and puts it around Louis’, his fingers only shaking a little.

Louis fingers the pass. “Band, huh?”

“If you’d like?” Harry’s pretty sure that he’s asking for more than just one concert and that he’s asking more of Louis than just to wear his Band pass. But, he has to speak to the other lads first and they have to make sure that Louis slots in alongside each of them as seamlessly and as quickly as he has alongside Harry. Not that Harry’s worried, mostly, but-

“Yeah, yeah, this is brilliant. Front row seat.”

“Better than.”

Louis nods. “Better than.”

And before the show starts, when Harry takes his place behind the curtain, microphone tucked into his waistband and guitar in his hands, Louis pulls himself up onto the amp next to him. He rests his elbow on Harry’s shoulder, puffing his chest out whenever anyone walks by, Harry’s pass catching the light on his breastbone. Everything about him reads ‘with the band’ and for one, brief, all-encompassing moment, Harry lets himself hope that it’s true.

***

It takes the bulk of the show for Harry to gather the nerve to ask Louis to stay.

Harry loves being on stage. Feels at home here, behind the barrier of his guitar, between the crowd – as sparse as it is – and the rest of the boys. And all he can do is laugh at Liam’s terrible attempts at dancing, tap his right foot along with Zayn’s steady beat on the snare drum, and trade bright grins with Niall during their shared choruses, all the time thinking about how lucky he is to be here. 

Tonight, though, he’s distracted. Louis’ still sitting on the amp in the wings, next to one of the Arlington lighting guys, and Harry keeps catching him out of the corner of his eye. He’s impossible to ignore, with his loose limbs and his raised eyebrows and the way he just fucking comes alive every time Harry looks at him.

After Harry’s first solo, Louis places his right hand over his heart, bumping it twice before crossing his eyes and falling backwards on the amp. Harry laughs, tripping over the chorus and covering it with a cough into his elbow that he hopes looks more legitimate than it sounds.

He misses the bridge of “Sweet Summer” completely, stifling his giggles behind his mic when he looks over to see Louis in a Rasta hat, pulled low over his eyes, fake dreads tucked behind his ears.

“Where did you get that?” Harry asks, still struggling to breath around his laughter, when they come off before the encore.

Louis just shrugs, twirling the hat around his fingers, knocking his shoes against the amp. “If you get a flower,” he reaches up with his free hand to tug, again, at the daisy in Harry’s hair, “I figured I could pull of a hat.”

“You look utterly ridiculous,” Harry laughs, fondness breaking over him and, as the applause gets louder, he leans forward to whisper in Louis’ ear. “I don’t know what you’re doing after the show, but, we’re heading back to the beach. Just the band, maybe some crew, we’ll have a laugh, sing a bit. And, like, if you wanted? You could come with if, you know, that was something you were into?”

Louis’ elbow is warm on Harry’s shoulder. “I don’t have any plans.”

“Okay, cool.” Harry bites his lip against his smile.

“Hazza,” Liam calls from the other stage wing, waving his arms and, yeah, they’ve probably left the crowd long enough.

“I’ve gotta finish the show, but-”

“Not going anywhere.” 

It’s terrifying how strongly Harry hopes that’s true.

***

Their encore isn’t more than two songs, sung while half of the already-half-full crowd files out the back doors. Most of them are waving their hands and tapping their feet as they walk, though, so Harry’s going to count this show as a win.

As he follows Liam off stage, he feels that rush of post-show adrenaline humming through his veins, and his bones feel light, like he might just vibrate off the stage floor. It’s made all the more powerful when he gets to the edge of the curtain and is met by Louis’ blinding smile and repeated slow clapping.

“Hey.” Harry grins, coming up next to Louis, close enough that Louis’ knee brushes against his hip. Harry feels reckless, stupid on adrenaline, as he leans into it.

“Hey.” Louis drops his hand to his knee, his pinky pressing, minutely, against Harry’s jeans pocket.

“So, ahh.” Harry’s finding it hard to talk around the desire to, well, he doesn’t really know what, but, be closer to Louis. Closer, closer, and Harry closes his eyes, focuses all his thoughts on the spot where their bodies are touching. He swallows, and he’s sure it’s audible. “I have to stick around for a bit, help pack things up, but, you can go with the lads? They’re brilliant.”

“Can’t wait to meet them.”

“Yeah, ahh-”

He’s saved from struggling through any more of a half-formed response by Zayn and Liam, who both appear at his elbow, sweat and adrenaline shining on their skin. “Hey, mate, that was good, right? Better than last night?” Liam wraps his hand around Harry’s shoulder and Harry reaches up to touch his fingers. It’s good, familiar, grounding in a way touching Louis definitely is not.

“Yeah, shit, they loved us out there.”

“Always do in Santa Barbara.” Zayn’s already digging through his pockets for a packet of cigarettes. “Don’t know why we play anywhere else.”

“Steve says something about money?” Liam offers. “I don’t really know, I tend to tune him out.”

“Cheeky.” Zayn finds the pack and lights one, lighter dangling from his fingers.

Liam frowns, waving his hand to disperse the smoke. 

Zayn blows his next cloud of nicotine at Liam’s ear. “After gigs and sex, that’s the deal, remember? Nothing better.”

Liam’s face goes red, splotches of it on the tips of his cheekbones, but before he can say anything, Louis leans around Harry to raise an eyebrow at Zayn. “Only after gigs and sex? That’s a pretty raw deal.”

Zayn laughs, holding out the pack, and Louis takes one, moving his hand from Harry’s hip, and leaning forward to light it on Zayn’s lighter. “Too right.”

There’s a bright flash of heat in Harry’s chest, competing with the patch of cold on his hip where Louis’ finger used to be. “Ahh, Liam, Zayn, this is Louis. Louis, Liam and Zayn.”

“Hello.” Louis holds up his free hand with a little wave. “Great gig.”

“Thanks.” Zayn takes a long drag on his cigarette as his eyes dart between Harry and Louis. Harry shakes his head, trying to warn Zayn off, but Zayn just blows another long puff of smoke in Liam’s direction as he says, all slow, careful British drawl. “Expat?”

“Aren’t we all?” Louis asks, with a little laugh. 

“The ones that matter.”

Harry’s really starting to question his decision to invite Louis back to camp. Definitely, at least, his decision to send Louis back without him. Or, mostly, with Zayn, who looks more like that Greek statue in the hallway than Harry ever will and sings with a grace and confidence and range that, fuck, Harry dreams about on his better nights.

Liam seems to be struggling with the same sorts of thoughts. He shares a glance with Harry as he slips a hand into Zayn’s back pocket and says, pointedly, “Any friend of Harry’s is a friend of ours. Expats gotta stick together, yeah?”

Louis looks back and forth from Harry to Liam to Zayn, but agrees quickly, “yeah, yeah, not many of us around these parts.”

“So, um.” Harry reaches out, wanting to do something, anything, to mirror Liam’s obvious possession of Zayn, but, well, Louis isn’t exactly _his_ , even if Harry has sort of taken him in, single-handedly. And not that Zayn is Liam’s, not that Liam even wants him to be, but, still. 

Harry stuffs his hand in his pocket, nodding, instead, for Louis to follow him. “I want to introduce you to Niall. You can go back with him.” Niall’s safe. Niall’s comfortable. Niall won’t look at Louis with half-lidded eyes and smoky eyebrows and-

Harry has to stop thinking like that. He doesn’t even know if Louis is interested. In fact, he knows nothing, at all, about Louis.

He’s an idiot.

It doesn’t stop him from being stupidly happy, though, when Louis doesn’t hesitate, giving Liam and Zayn a little wave before falling into step with Harry. “They seem nice.”

“They are.”

“Um- yeah, I mean, they’re your friends so-” Louis shrugs and Harry glances at him.

“I don’t-?”

Louis bumps Harry’s shoulder. “Means I’m bound to like them, aren’t I?”

Which, Harry’s pretty sure what he’s supposed to take from that, but, just to be sure, “because you like me?”

Louis laughs - throws his head back, feels it deep in his chest, laughs - and catches himself with a hand in Harry’s hair, ruffling it obnoxiously. “Yes, doofus, because I like you.” He says it slowly, like he’s on _H.R. Pufnstuf_ or something. Harry doesn’t appreciate it, except, well, he does. Appreciate the sentiment, at least.

“Ahh, Harry, mate, good.” Niall’s voice is accented, thicker than usual from where he’s bending down next to a row of guitars. “The Fender needs a tuning, maybe new strings. The slide guitar definitely needs to be re-strung.”

Harry nods. “Yeah. I noticed that before, but, figured you didn’t want to play on it cold like that.”

“Definitely. Bring it out tonight. We’ll wear it in.” Niall winks at Harry as he stands up, his knees covered in dust and dirt from kneeling on the floor, hands thick with resin and calluses as he wipes them on his jeans before holding out his right for Louis to shake. “Hi, I’m Niall.”

Louis is grinning as he takes Niall’s hand. “Louis.”

“You with this one?” He nods in Harry’s direction, taking his hand back and cupping it around his mouth for a stage whisper. “Careful what you’re getting yourself into, the dimples, the voice … dangerous, this one.”

Harry loves Niall. Like, mates-for-life, brothers-in-arms, will-split-the-last-brownie kind of loves him.

Louis whispers back, eyes sparkling happily. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

“Good.” Niall’s face breaks out into a grin and he slaps Louis’ shoulder a little harder than necessary. “Good. Now I won’t have to kill ya.”

“Thanks,” Harry deadpans.

Niall shoots him a happy, sparkling look that speaks to hours of interrogation later. Harry can’t be bothered at the moment, though, and just sticks his tongue out in return. 

Niall fake shudders. “Only ‘cause it’s so hard to get rid of the body. And messy. Gotta keep these hands clean, they’re rather important to me.”

Harry rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning as he steps forward, immediately picking out the instruments that need his serious attention. The Everett brothers can deal with packing up the rest; Harry hopes he has more important plans for the evening than spending three more hours at the Arlington Theatre. “I’m gonna take care of these, and supervise the load out. Will you take Louis back with you? He’s gonna hang.”

“Yeah, course.” Niall slings an arm over Louis’ shoulders, affecting a posh accent. “We’ll get along fabulously.” 

Harry laughs, and when he glances at Louis, Louis is laughing too. Good. Louis should like Niall. Everyone should like Niall, because he’s the happiest guy on earth. He’s also rather important to Harry and if Louis is also gonna become- well, it matters that he and Niall become friends, is all.

Harry nods and Niall squeezes Louis’ shoulder, turning him away, toward the back of the theatre and the cars waiting for them. Harry stands there, watching them walk away, struggling for something, anything, to say, to let Louis know- Harry’s not sure what he wants Louis to know, but, something about the turmoil in Harry’s head. 

It feels like a moment, one of those important ones that come a few times in a lifetime. Harry’s had a few of them so far. 

Hearing Bob Dylan play, that first time at Wha? Café, surrounded by protesters who cared, about music, about ideas, about all the things Harry’s dedicated himself to care about, too. 

Hugging his mum good bye and standing on the street corner outside their townhouse in NY, thumb raised high and only a little wobbly in the air, waiting for someone to take a chance on him.

When Liam came into the Troubadour, confident and not at all at the same time, and asked Harry to take a chance on _him_ , on their band and the music they could, possibly, make together.

And, now, this boy, slipping into his life over the course of a few minutes, with his harmonies and his little touches and his Pink Floyd t-shirt and the way he smiles with his whole body.

Those were the moments, so far, that have made up Harry’s life, and Harry hates himself, a little, for so clearly missing this last one. 

Except, at the end of the hallway, Louis turns, flashes Harry a thumbs up and Harry returns it, feeling stupid and childish and happier than he has since Liam picked him out to start the band. 

Maybe he didn’t miss the moment, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna chat about these silly boys, folk music, or anything else, please comment here or find me on [tumblr!](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/) I'll be sharing all kinds of pictures and songs and fic snippets there on my [A Case of You](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/tagged/a-case-of-you) tag, so come follow me.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry bites his tongue. He knows they couldn’t go on like this forever, but, he thought they’d have more time. Time to find their sound and finish their band and, Jesus, he found Louis, like, five hours ago. They haven’t even had a chance to sing together, all five of them.
> 
> “From what I hear, you have one more chance. So, make the most of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs featured in this chapter are You've Got a Friend (Carole King), Crazy Love (Van Morrison), Madman Across the Water (Elton John), Peaceful Easy Feelings (Eagles), and Maybe I'm Amazed (Paul McCartney). And now there's finally enough tracks to publish an 8Tracks playlist, so [here is it](http://8tracks.com/lateforthesky/a-case-of-you)!
> 
> This chapter features [The Troubadour](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/post/99620172773/the-troubadour-9081-santa-monica-blvd-west) for the first time, the center of the LA folk scene in the early 1970s.

“Styles.”

Harry sighs. He honestly can’t think of anyone he wants to talk to less at the moment than Steve. Not when the rest of the lads have headed back to the beach, leaving Harry alone and defenseless against their manager. Harry always manages to get himself into trouble where Steve’s concerned; Liam’s almost definitely going to kill him later, no matter what Harry manages to say or not say.

Harry’s a good boy, though, so he puts Niall’s slide guitar back in the rack and turns on his heels. He’s squatting on the stage, a few feet shorter than Steve and staring up into his nose hairs. He hides a frown as he leverages himself up. “Hey, Steve. Good gig, yeah?”

Steve clucks his tongue, slipping his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “Not good, no.”

“Wasn’t so bad,” Harry says, pursing his lips and slipping some loose hairs under his headscarf. 

“Rebel Records isn’t in the business of producing mediocre bands.”

“Rebel Records,” Harry bites out because, really, the gig was good. Their songs were catchy, their harmonies were solid, they had fun up there and the audience could tell. Harry doesn’t have enough ego to make that shit up. “Isn’t producing us.” _Yet_. At this rate, they might never be.

Harry watches Steve bristle. “Maybe not, but we are paying for your demo contract, Styles. And you aren’t cheap.”

Harry snorts. They’re living in tents, surviving on cans of beans and begged time at the Rebel studios in LA. Also, ‘Styles’? “Harry,” he corrects, because it seems like the safest of the things he wants to say.

“I’d, honestly, much rather be having this conversation with Payne.”

At least that’s one thing they can agree on. “Well, I’m the only one here right now, so, say what you need to say and I’ll relay it back.”

Steve eyes him, his neck bent a little, to accentuate the inches he has on Harry, as if he’s trying to decide if Harry’s trustworthy. Which is ridiculous. Harry’s never done anything to hurt Steve, or Rebel in general. He’s just here for the music. Always has been.

Finally, Steve taps the toe of his dress shoe against the worn oak of the stage and glares Harry down. “As you know, David asked me to look after you.”

Harry nods. David, their contact at Rebel, long ago ceded day-to-day control of them to his underlings. Steve being this month’s least-fortunate minion.

“And I’ve been relaying my observations these last few weeks.”

Steve pauses, as if he’s waiting for a response, and Harry crosses his arms over his chest. He has a pretty good idea where this is heading. “Hmm?”

“They haven’t been good.”

“No shit,” Harry murmurs under his breath, probably – maybe – too low for Steve to hear.

“And David likes you. You would have been out of Rebel months ago if I had had my way.”

Well, good to know exactly where Steve stands, Harry guesses. It doesn’t come as a surprise, but it does hurt a little. And Harry should be immune to this by now, but, really, Steve’s been with them for a couple of months, travelling to gigs, sitting in the wings, watching the crowd, and Harry had thought they were doing alright. Not great, obviously, but alright. It hurts to know that they really haven’t been.

“But David’s support can’t last forever.” Steve leans forward, and Harry takes an involuntary step backwards, his calves brushing against the rack of guitars. He chastises himself for the show of weakness as Steve gives him a satisfied half-smile. “And Rebel’s patience and money is just about run out.”

“You’d drop us?” Harry asks, before he can bite his tongue. He knows they couldn’t go on like this forever, but, he thought they’d have more time. Time to find their sound and finish their band and, Jesus, he found Louis, like, five hours ago. They haven’t even had a chance to sing together, all five of them.

“From what I hear, you have one more chance. So, make the most of it.”

Harry swallows.

“I don’t know why it’ll be any different than your, what, 23 other demos?”

Harry should, really, ask Liam about the number. “Something like that,” he mutters.

“But,” Steve gives a full smile, slippery and almost definitely insincere, “I’m rooting for you guys.”

“We appreciate your support.”

Steve pulls his right hand from his pocket and clasps Harry’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid. It just takes more than that in this profession. It’s a shame, really.” Steve withdraws his hand, and is already halfway off the stage as he calls back, “Make sure to tell the rest of the band, won’t you?”

And then he’s gone.

Leaving Harry with nothing but a desire to kick one of Niall’s traditional Irish string instruments, warring with the need to sit on the edge of the stage with his guitar and cry over minor chords for a half hour or so. It leaves him paralyzed, standing next to the rack of guitars, fingers thrumming against his thigh.

How’s he going to tell the lads that their days are numbered? He wonders if Liam already has an idea this is coming; if David’s warned him about this in those one-on-one meetings they have sometimes; if, maybe, it’s why they all seemed in such a hurry to get away from here, to the beach, out of range of Steve’s grasp and his slippery smile and his nightmare words.

Harry isn’t ready for this to be over. No matter how half-packed and half-interested their audiences are, he’s on stage, with his best mates, singing songs that he loves. He doesn’t want to go back to sweeping floors at the Troubadour. Doesn’t even know if he could. 

And Louis. Fuck. Can he rope him into this dead end band? Would it be fair?

But, no. That’s not quite right. Steve said that they have one more shot, one more check from Rebel, or something like that. And Harry’s only heard Louis sing one verse of one song, but he’s brilliant. He’s what they’ve been missing, Harry can feel it in his bones.

And if Harry can feel other things, too – Louis’ open laugh and his small, secret smiles, his smooth fingers and effortless touches – well, Harry will cross that bridge later. Preferably after they’ve made a killer demo. Or a number one single. Harry, honestly, will settle for either.

No matter that he’d rather settle for a celebration tonight. In the light of the campfire, after Louis agrees to stay, to make music together, in every sense of the word. 

Gemma’s been teaching him a lot about mindfulness, about being aware of his thoughts and reigning them in, and Harry physically pulls his mind away from those thoughts. Because he’s getting ahead of himself; so, so ahead of himself. He just has to convince Louis, first. And, before that, he has to convince the boys that this is all a good idea.

“Hey, Everett,” Harry calls, not really caring which of the brothers jogs over. “You guys good here? I’m gonna take these back with me,” Harry motions to the two guitars Niall wants to work on, “and finish up in camp.”

Everett’s eyes sparkle, like he knows exactly why Harry’s cutting out early. Or maybe it’s the semi-crazed flush gracing Harry’s cheeks left by Steve and his ultimatums. “Sure boss, we’ve got your back.”

“Thanks. I owe you a beer.”

“You owe us a keg.”

“Name the date and time.” Harry means it, sort of, next time he has more than a tent, a beat up old Gibson, and about $10 to his name. Everett knows it, too, but he waves him off, and Harry doesn’t wait for anyone to call him back before he’s in the parking lot, packing the last of Niall’s instruments into the back of his van, and heading to the beach.

***

Harry pulls into the parking lot, killing the headlights but letting the van idle for a few minutes. Carole King is crooning at him over the radio, telling him that he’s got a friend, when there’s a rap of knuckles against the window.

“Fuck, Liam,” Harry breathes out, rolling down the window and glaring at Liam. “Warn a guy.”

“You were a little-” Liam waves his hand, “focused.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a lot of things to focus on.” Harry grumbles, pretty sure, at this point, that Liam knows exactly what happened, or at least, an approximation of it. He wouldn’t be stalking out here, hiding in the shadows and waiting him out, if he didn’t. “I had an interesting conversation with Steve after you all left me.”

“Oh?”

“Cut it out, Li. You’re a terrible liar.”

Liam sighs, opening the door and climbing in, patting Harry on his hip so that he’ll move over and make room for Liam in the drivers’ seat. “I didn’t know that Steve would talk to you tonight. Didn’t know that he’d talk to you at all, but, I can guess.”

Harry crosses his arms, making sure that his elbow digs into Liam’s ribs where they’re pressed so close together. “What have you been doing, all those meetings in LA with David? Has he just been lying to you?”

The light in the van is pretty low, just the moon and the filtered, artificial orange of the parking lot lights, but Harry can see the flush spreading high on Liam’s cheeks and down, past the collar of his shirt. “I haven’t seen David in a few weeks.”

“What?” Harry jostles Liam as he shifts, turning sideways so he can stare at Liam properly. “You go to LA every Wednesday.”

“Yeah, well,” Liam shrugs. His voice is tight, embarrassed and frustrated and Harry has no idea how Liam’s been hiding this from him. He’s so terrible at hiding anything. “David stopped taking my calls. But, I didn’t want to worry you, so, like, I still go. I sit in that damn waiting room for hours, until the secretary – the blond one with the,” Liam holds his hands out to like a DD cup or something, which is definitely an exaggeration, but Harry laughs a little, anyway. “Anyway, she chews her gum at me, until I finally, just, give up and walk around LA for a couple hours, just until I think it’s safe to come home.”

“Liam-”

“I know, I know. I should have told you. Weeks ago, the first time it happened, but, Harry, I couldn’t have you looking at me like-”

“Like what?” Harry asks, softly, gently, because he’s pretty sure he already knows.

“Like I’ve failed you. And the boys. And- fuck.”

“Hey, hey, look at me.” Harry catches Liam’s chin in his fingertips and turns him to look at Harry. “No one’s failed anyone. Not yet, not ever. And Steve said we have one more chance, one more check. We’ll make another demo and it’s gonna be brilliant and David’s going to have to take our calls and it’s gonna be, just, so good. Promise.”

Liam’s chin is shaking in Harry’s hand, and his voice is broken, fighting against tears, when he speaks. “I really appreciate your optimism, but, we’ve made 25 demos-”

So, Harry was a couple off. Whatever.

“What’ll be different?”

“Louis,” Harry says, all the surety he’s ever felt in that one word. “Louis’ gonna be different.”

“Your boy toy?” Liam raises an eyebrow, but at least he’s laughing now, his voice no longer sounding like he’s one wrong word away from a breakdown.

“He’s not my- I don’t even know what a boy toy is. Have you heard him sing?”

“Didn’t even know he could.”

“He can. Like, so, so, good. Better than Zayn, maybe.”

Louis scoffs.

“I know, I didn’t believe it either, but, just listen, yeah? What harm can it cause? We’re kinda desperate.”

Liam clears his throat, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder. “That we are.”

“So you’ll listen to him?” Liam nods. “And you won’t hide things like this from me again?” Liam pauses, and Harry wraps his arms around Liam’s chest. “We’re in this together, Li. Have been, for so long I don’t remember what it’s like to make music without you.” And isn’t that just the scariest thought Harry’s had in forever.

“Me either,” Liam finally says, softly, like he’s remembering who he was before Harry and doesn’t like who he remembers. He leans into Harry for another few, long, moments, before he moves away, opening the door and hopping out.

They grab the guitar cases from the back, before heading back to the beach camp. The boys are huddled around the campfire, sitting on logs and digging bare feet into the cool sand. Niall’s on one, fingers dancing over his banjo, and Zayn and Louis are on the other, a joint hanging between their fingers as Zayn passes it over. Harry feels a flash of warmth, before Liam’s hand is hard on his back, urging him forward.

Harry straightens his shoulder, crossing to take a seat on the empty log, piling the guitar cases next to him as he says, casually, “Spreading rumors about me yet?”

“I’m offended,” Niall says, stopping his strumming to place a hand to his chest. “Besides, everyone knows that you wet the bed, right?”

“I was eight.”

“Everyone knows that one,” Liam says, as he settles in next to Niall on his log. “And it’s common knowledge that you were sick in Joni Mitchell’s pool last month, yeah?”

“That punch was spiked.”

“And,” Zayn jumps in, blowing out a lung-full of smoke and smiling lazily in Harry’s direction, “that you can’t sleep without a night light?”

Harry shrugs, pulling out the slide guitar and starting to change the strings. “That one’s true.”

Louis rests his elbows on his knees, peering across the fire at Harry, the light dancing across his features. “You live on a beach. Without electricity.”

Harry nods up at the open sky. “The moon.”

“Not the most reliable night light.”

Harry shrugs.

“What do you do when it’s a new moon?”

Harry glances up, catching Louis’ eye, and smirking.

Harry smirks at him. Louis grins around the lip of his beer bottle and Harry watches as the condensation drips down the neck and along Louis’ fingers, collecting on the cuff of the UCLA sweatshirt he has pulled halfway up his hands. Harry swallows hard, readjusting the guitar in his lap. Louis grins harder, finishing off his bottle.

The beer is in a cardboard box next to Harry, and, slowly, Louis gets up, bending down to pull out a new one. “Wanna share?” He asks, and Harry swallows, scooting over to make room, knees pressed together under the slide guitar. Harry’s missed the closeness in the few hours since the gig and he knows it makes him weak, but he leans towards Louis, angling his body in Louis’ direction.

Louis tips the bottle towards Harry, and Harry wraps his fingers along Louis’, tilting his head so that Louis can pour a long sip into his mouth. It’s lukewarm in the humid California night, but it feels good, calming, as it settles in Harry’s head. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“So,” Liam says, leaning forward on his knees and deliberately interrupting their suddenly-private conversation. “Harry tells me you can sing.”

“Um,” Louis drops the bottle between his knees, distractedly picking at the label. “Yeah. I mean, I like to.”

Liam nods, before pushing. “What’s your story?”

What’s your story, Louis?”

“Don’t have much of one, I’m afraid.”

“Everyone has a story,” Zayn argues, leaning back in false disinterest.

“And anyone willing to hang with us for more than ten minutes has to be a little crazy.” Niall points at Harry. “That includes you.”

Harry shrugs, deliberately keeping the motion smooth and relaxed against Louis’ taut body. “I’m the craziest of all of us.”

“Too true, mate. Cheers.” Niall reaches over, clinking his beer with Louis’ since Harry doesn’t have one of his own, before taking a seat, cross-legged, on the sand, back pressed against his log. “So, Louis?”

Louis runs his free hand through his hair, elbow jabbing into Harry’s chest as he does, and, when he lowers his hand again, it’s on Harry’s thigh, pressed between the guitar and Harry’s jeans. It takes everything in Harry not to press into the hand. “I was studying to be a teacher, but it didn’t work on. And I’ve never been good at anything but babies and singing, so-” Louis shrugs. “Same old story, different day.”

Liam’s eyes light up, probably at the affirmation that Louis has no place better to be. Their band, really, is a collection of misfits. Louis will fit right in. “Haz tell me you’re pretty good.”

Louis laughs. It only sounds a little forced to Harry. “Well, I really wanted to be a footballer, but, dreams, eh?” 

The boys laugh, take Louis’ answer at face value. Dreams, unrealized and realized and everything in between, are something each of them can relate to.

Harry, though, Harry wants to push. He wants to ask Louis about his music, to find out if he likes the glam and hard rock of his t-shirts or the folk purity of his voice. He wants to understand how he can seem so simultaneously sure and unsure of himself, not when he’s so fucking good. Harry wants to make sure that Louis gets that.

Instead, though, he focuses on the slide guitar, finishing up the last string and passing it over to Niall. Harry turns his attention to the Fender as Niall tests the slide guitar, fiddling around for a few minutes before settling into “Crazy Love.”

“Van Morrison every time, dude,” Liam complains.

Niall just shrugs. “Irishmen forever, mate.” When he circles back to the opening chords, though, Liam starts to sing.

_I can hear her heartbeat from a thousand miles_  
Yeah the heavens open every times she smiles  
And when I come to her, that’s where I belong  
Yet I’m running to her like a river’s song 

Zayn and Niall join in on the chorus, Harry humming along with them until Niall nods at him to take the second verse. Harry pauses his work, spreading his right hand along the neck of the guitar so that his thumb brushes Louis’ hand, rubs soft, rhythmic circles along the back of it as he sings. 

_She’s got a fine sense of humor, when I’m feeling low down_  
Yeah, when I come to her when the sun goes down  
Take away my trouble, take away my grief  
Take away my heartache, in the night like a thief 

“Lou,” Harry urges, and Louis listens to the first line of the chorus before he joins them, fitting his tenor in and around Niall and Zayn. He sounds good, perfect, even, and Harry lets himself smile as he picks up the string he let dangle in the sand. Louis’ eyes are on him, smiling in parallel with Harry. His body is looser than it was a few minutes ago and, when he catches Harry looking, he squeezes Harry’s knee, and they finish the final verse out together.

_And when I’m returning, from so far away_  
She gives me some sweet lovin’, brighten up my day  
Yes it makes me righteous, yes it makes me whole  
Yes it makes me mellow, down to my soul 

Harry flushes, and he looks down, finishing up the guitar as Zayn ends the song on the last line of the chorus, high note echoing through the quiet of their stretch of beach.

Harry shivers.

***

 _The Troubadour, Los Angeles, 1972_

Los Angeles smells of songs and sunshine, sounds like drugs and gasoline, and feels like denim and ambition. So different from the cynical glamour of New York, so different from the harsh winds and refined abstractionism that battered against Harry’s teenage years.

In NY, LA was considered provincial, with a little too much Hollywood-glitz and kookiness to sustain real musical inspiration.

LA is Harry’s kind of town. 

He loves it from the moment he arrives, and the city loves him.

Within a week, Doug Weston hires him to sweep the floors at the Troubadour. It’s a small place in West Hollywood, just south of the Strip on Santa Monica Boulevard. Close enough to breed success and ambition, far enough to keep its roots and eccentricities.

It’s Harry’s favorite place in the world. He loves the history, loves touching elbows – quite literally - with LA’s music elite, loves overhearing conversations between Joni Mitchell, Stephen Stills, Neil Young. He loves standing in the corner during Monday open mic nights, watching teenage folk singers in patch-worked-denim and nearly-there afros sing their first sets, all wide-eyed and terrified. When Harry closes his eyes, he can almost, almost, picture himself up there.

He doesn’t particularly love the smell of liquor, the sticky floors, the bathroom walls covered in graffiti and other things only a black light will pick up, but, ehh, he’s paying his dues. And he finds that a clothespin over the bridge of his nose cuts off the worst of it.

It’s a Tuesday night, round about 4 am, moving into late November. Harry has the doors and windows open, to cut the humidity and let out the worst of the body sweat and the smell of half-price Tom Collins. The sweet smell of lemon, sugar, and gin is, generally, teetering on the edge of Harry’s limit.

The club is empty. Even Doug left half-an-hour ago, throwing his green corduroy suit jacket over his shoulder and patting Harry’s back with a drunken, trusting, “you’re a good kid.”

It’s moments like this when Harry wishes he were more of a badass. Like, this would be the perfect opportunity to wreak havoc on the place, to drink half a bottle of Scotch and pretend he’s Janis Joplin, kick a hole in an amp, smash a guitar, go a little crazy on stage.

Harry, though, only gets three sips into the bottle before his stomach starts to roll unpleasantly, and he respects guitars far too much to destroy one. They’re his lifeblood, how he plans, someday, to make a living.

He does, however, dig through Doug’s records, settling on a somewhat battered copy of Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water,” that album Elton released just months before he made his first trip to the US to play five days in this very club, and cement his name as one of the most important figures in 1970s rock music. 

Elton John’s always been one of Harry’s favorites. With his unassuming manner, sparkling purple shirts and platform shoes, he exudes a ‘fuck all’ attitude that Harry aspires to. He’s also on the short list of post-Beatles Brits to make success on both sides of the ocean and, well, if there’s anything Harry wants in life, it’s cross-national success in his home and adopted countries.

If Harry’s being completely honest, it also has a bit to do with the first story Doug ever told him. About how he caught Elton before that first show, nervous as hell and sweating through his star-spangled shirt, shaking off excess energy on his knees in the alleyway out back, fingers shaky around the bartender’s thighs. Doug had had to fire the bartender for abandoning the club on such a busy night, but it had endeared him to Elton and, in turn, has endeared Harry.

Cranking the volume, Harry lets Elton’s glam and soul, the brilliant piano runs and light, airy voice, fill the Troubadour. He sings along, under his breath, as he sweeps and mops the floors and scrubs down the bar. When he gets to the stage, though, the first chords of the title track start up, just the thrumming of the guitar, and Harry pauses, mid-stage, and allows himself a moment to dream. 

Closing his eyes, he can feel it. The eyes of the crowd on him, the clink of glasses and hushed whispers, patrons shushing each other so they can catch his voice. It’s a rush, just imagining performing in front of so many people, people who know music and like him despite it.

Wrapping his fingers around the end of the mop, it feels like a microphone, and Harry bends over it, belting out the chorus like a true rock star. Or, at least, what Harry assumes he’d be like if he was a rock star.

_We’ll come again next Thursday afternoon,_  
The in-laws hope they’ll see you very soon,  
But is it in your conscience that you’re after,  
Another glimpse of the madman across the water 

He holds out the last note, slow and high and falsetto, something he’s been trying, mostly in the privacy of his own, tiny, one-room apartment. It’s fun, though, getting into it, and he pulls the mop across his chest, playing it like his guitar during the solo, using his mouth to set the beat of the drums and violin.

He finishes on his back on the stage, mop held loosely in one hand, before scrambling up and taking a deep, exaggerated bow, arms raised to the sides and hands urging the crowd to cheer louder in his head.

Except, the clapping sounds really realistic and that whistling is hurting his eardrums. His imaginary audience doesn’t have the ability to cause him physical damage, does it? He read some Freud in school, about the power of suggestion, and, fuck- He sticks his fingers in his ears and opens his eyes.

There’s a man there, a boy really, straddling a chair, index fingers in his mouth, face red from whistling. 

Harry has the fleeting thought that Doug will surely fire him if he gets the Troubadour robbed because he was too distracted singing Elton John. But, who’s he kidding? Harry can’t take anyone. “The till’s behind the bar,” he sighs, resigned.

Liam stops mid-whistle, tilting his head and frowning at Harry. “Why would I-? Wait, do you think I’m here to rob you?”

Harry nods, slowly.

Liam laughs. Like, holds his stomach, slaps his thigh, laughs-from-his-belly-like-Santa laughs. “Mate, if I was here to rob you, I wouldn’t stop to hear your gig.”

Harry flushes. He supposes, yeah, that would be pretty stupid, but, then, “What are you doing here?”

Liam wipes tears from the corners of his eyes – which, really, Harry thinks that’s a bit much – and turns in his chair, nodding towards the open doors to the club. “I heard you singing, thought I’d come in and listen.”

“It wasn’t- It was just me having a laugh.”

“Nah, kid, if that was you just messing around, I can’t wait to hear what you sound like when you sing proper.”

“I’m not- I mean, I want to, but, I’m not a singer.”

“I think I’ve seen you around. You’re the night janitor, yeah?”

Harry nods. “It’s a foot in the door.”

“And you’re always frowning at the soundboard. You know what you’re doing.”

“I do some mixing.” Harry shrugs. “Just my own demos and stuff.”

Liam holds up his hands. “That’s more than I can do. I’m Liam, by the way.”

“Harry.”

“Cool.” Liam stuffs his hands in his pockets and shuffles his feet. 

Something flashes in Harry’s mind, a feeling of déjà vu or a memory. “I’ve seen you before. You sit over there,” Harry nods to a table in the back, “and don’t say much.”

“I’m observing.”

“Right,” Harry says, slowly. Most people come to the Troubadour to be seen rather than to see.

“Well, look, I could use someone like you. Come over to mine tomorrow night. A couple of the lads are getting together and I’d like you to come, see where things go.”

That sounds- amazing, if Harry’s being honest with himself. A night of jamming with people who like him, who like his voice, who think he knows enough about music to be worth the trouble. But, “I have a shift.”

Liam shakes his head, lifting himself from his chair, oozing a cool and confidence that, later, he’ll admit he was not feeling. “It’s your choice, mate. You know where I’ll be.”

And in a choice between trying out for a band, even a stranger’s band, and sweeping the floors of other musicians’ trash? It really is no choice at all.

***

Harry finishes restringing the Fender, turning it over and frowning. He plays a couple notes, frowning, and Louis cringes. “Stop, stop. Hand that over.”

Harry does, watching as Louis’ fingers twist around the neck of the guitar, thighs tensed to keep it from falling to the sand. He’s awkward about it, but he’s also holding the Fender reverently.

“Do you play?”

“Nah.” Louis finishes tuning it, and hand it over, quickly, like he doesn’t trust himself with it or something “Wanted to learn, but, I was never allowed to. The Devil’s music.”

Harry laughs. “You play the keys.”

“Ahh, but, so could Mozart.”

Harry settles the Fender in his lap, running his hands along her strings, before launching into a solo. She sounds gorgeous. “I could write a sonata for this guitar.”

“Sounds better.” Niall nods, approvingly, and Harry smiles.

“Yeah, I used the good ones. The ones we stole from Glenn last week.”

“We didn’t ‘steal’ them. Technically.”

Harry snorts. Whatever, the Fender does sound amazing now, and Glenn Frey can stand to lose a set of good strings, certainly more so than they can. Harry thinks for a moment, before picking out the first few chords of “Peaceful Easy Feeling”.

Liam laughs. “You’re an asshole, using stolen strings to play the man’s own song.”

Next to him, Louis covers his mouth as he bends over to laugh. Harry grins. Anything that makes Louis laugh like that is totally worth it. Besides, Liam’s been working on a reggae version of “Peaceful Easy Feeling” that’s coming along nicely, and Harry wants Louis to hear it.

Niall fits the slide guitar in along Harry’s melody and Liam’s still grinning as he begins.

_I like the way you’re sparkling earrings lay, against your skin so brown_

Then, Louis leans over, singing the second line, accented and loud, into Harry’s ear. 

_And I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight, with a billion stars all around_

Harry’s hands stutter, his face burning, and he misses his harmonies in the chorus. Louis, though, just grins, tapping out the reggae rhythm with his toes, picking up Harry’s part in the second chorus. He knows music, knows keys and pitch and harmonies as well as even Liam does, and Harry files that away in an important corner of his mind.

He pulls himself together to finish the song on the last chorus, all five of their voice together in harmony. It could use a little work on the rhythm, a few pitch things here and there, but for the first time singing together, on a reggae version of the song Louis’ never heard before, it’s pretty damn amazing.

_’Cause I get a peaceful easy feeling_  
And I know you won’t let me down  
‘Cause I’m already standing, yes, I’m already standing, on the ground 

Harry smiles through it, grinning even harder when Liam rubs his palms on his thighs and grins back.

“So,” Liam says, turning to Louis. “How do you feel about being in a band?”

“Feels like a lifeline.”

Harry gets the distinct feeling that Louis isn’t exaggerating.

***

“All right,” Liam says, halfway through a yawn, stretching his arms and jostling Zayn where he’s dozing against Liam’s shoulder. “I’m calling it a night. Harry, you’ll-?” He waves his hand at Louis meaning, Harry presumes, _deal with him_ or _show him to a tent_ or, possibly, _share your tent_. Harry hopes for the latter, but figures it’s safer to assume either of the former.

“Yes, dad.”

Liam flips him off and Harry sticks his tongue out in response.

“I don’t know about you lads, but I’m knackered, too.” Niall stretches, the guitar sliding off his knees as gets up, his knees cracking. “This old knee needs its beauty sleep.”

“The rest of you, too,” Harry quips, reaching out to take the slide guitar from Niall’s loose fingers. Harry’s pretty glad that he’s been sharing beers with Louis all night and is still mostly sober. Sober enough, at least, to finish up his job and put them all to bed safely.

“Bugger off.”

“Good night to you, too.”

Niall shoots him the finger, then blows an exaggerated kiss in Harry’s direction. “’Night, darling.”

Harry makes a show of catching the kiss, laughing and shaking his head as Niall zips himself into his tent. Next to Harry, Louis is chuckling, his body still pressed along Harry’s, warm and so, so much more distracting now that they’re alone.

Harry swallows. “So, ahh, I have to lock up, but-”

“I’ll come with. Singing always fills me with energy. I need to come down yet.”

Harry understands that, feels the same way, even after months and months of jam sessions just like this one. So, he nods, juggling the two guitars as he stands. The vans are parked just up the beach, and the light of the fire dims quickly as they move away from camp. Shadows seem to be jumping out from trees and cars and Harry jumps as Louis’ hand touches his waist, lightly.

“Sorry,” Louis whispers into the night. “Didn’t want to lose you in the dark.”

Harry wishes he could reach back, wrap his hand around Louis’, never let go, but he has two guitars clutched to his chest. And, besides, he’s not even sure Louis wants it. “Just wasn’t expecting it.” 

As they reach the edge of the parking lot, they’re bathed in the flickering artificiality of ill-maintained lamp light, and Louis drops his hand. He leans against the equipment van as Harry opens the back, shuffling through the guitar cases to make room for the Fender and the slide guitar.

He closes the door and Louis is right there, ankles crossed and beer bottle loose in his fingers. His body is strumming with energy, even as his eyes are slitted, dark tired. And Harry wants everything. Wants to wrap his hands around Louis’ neck, pull him close, press him against the van and kiss him, slot his thigh between Louis’ and rub against those obscenely tight jeans.

Louis, though, sighs deeply, banging his head against the van, eyes slipping shut. “I’m in a band,” he says, in awe.

And Harry laughs, forces himself to, because that’s just the reminder that he needed, that as much as he wants this, aches for it, the music is what matters. They have one more shot at this, one more demo, and Harry couldn’t live with himself if he made a move, scared Louis away, and lost the rest of the boys their best chance.

“Yeah,” he says, instead, smiling. “It never really sinks in.”

“I can live with that,” Louis says, opening his eyes around a big yawn. “Wouldn’t mind feeling like this forever.” 

“Me either,” Harry agrees. “But, maybe, sleep first? We’ll all still be here in the morning.”

Louis nods, falling into step behind Harry, only stopping when Harry stops at the threshold of one of the extra tents they leave set up. Louis’ tent, now, Harry corrects himself. “So, ahh, this is yours.”

It feels ridiculously like the end of the first, and only, date Harry ever went on in high school. Her name was Sally and she was pretty, all blond curls and red lips, funny and sweet and not at all Harry’s type. He had tried to kiss her, but she had just placed her hand on his chest, her voice quite and understanding. “This isn’t going to work, is it?” He had wanted to argue, tell her that she was beautiful, that she was the girl of his dreams. But, in the end, he had kissed her on her cheek, thanked her for a lovely evening, and walked the mile back to his flat with Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed” crooning in his ear.

Standing here, now, he feels exactly the same as he did then. Like he’s on the cusp of something, except, this time, something more powerful, more important, something special. Because if Sally wasn’t his type, Louis absolutely is. Dark and brash and fitting himself, in the span of a few hours, neatly into Harry’s life like he belongs there. Like he’s always been there, just waiting for Harry to take notice.

Harry hums, quietly, his favorite line, “and maybe you’re the only woman who could ever help me.”

Louis joins in on the last two words, harmonizing with Harry’s lower tones. “I love that song.”

“Yeah, me too,” meaning _we make beautiful music together_ , meaning, maybe, _if Sally wasn’t the one, maybe you are_.

Or, maybe he’s just a sap.

He brushes his hair out of his eyes. “I’ll see you in the morning?” He doesn’t mean it to be a question, not really, but he’s pretty relieved when Louis nods.

“Yeah.” Louis lingers, his fingers playing along the zipper of the tent flap, his eyes downcast and Harry wishes, hopes, that Louis’s asking Harry to kiss him. But then he sighs, pulling the zipper and stepping halfway inside. “’Night.”

“’Night.” Harry points towards his tent, one final invitation. “I’m over there, if you need anything.”

Harry lies awake for long minutes, his ears peeled for any sound from the other tents. Namely, the sound of Louis creeping out to join Harry. All Harry hears, though, are Liam’s loud, snorting snores and the low sounds of Niall singing himself to sleep with old Gaelic folk tunes.

About thirty minutes in, Harry rolls onto his back, kicking off his sleeping bag and reaching into his pants. He’s been half-hard since the gig, always is on-stage, not at all helped by the feel of Louis’ thigh pressed against his by the fire, the smooth skin of Louis’ wrist under his thumb, the way Louis’ converse tapped out the rhythm to “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and the deep, Northern accent of his voice over the lyrics.

“Uh.” Harry’s dick twitches against his palm, leaving a trail of pre-come in the dip of his hipbone. He’s already incredibly hard, the head tight and swollen as he runs his thumb along the slit, before circling the crown. 

With his thumb and index finger he forms a circle, fucking up into it with slow, measured thrusts. His hips arch off the sleeping bag with the swish and pull of nylon, and he’s grateful for the noises from Liam and Niall’s tents, because this isn’t going to be quite. Not with how turned on he is, not with how long it’s been since he’s gotten off like this, fast and quick and hard and without space enough to breath.

His pants are damp with sweat, sticking to his thighs and the dip of his ass, and he struggles, briefly, holding his weight on his shoulders as he shimmies out of them. It’s ungraceful and, he’s pretty sure, undignified, but he’s also getting off on the disappointment of spending this night alone, so he figures things are scaled at the moment. 

Naked, he lies back against his makeshift Led Zeppelin pillow, spreading his knees and letting his left hand trace a path down his side, his stomach, the top of his thighs, before cupping his balls. They’re heavy in his palm, full and already pulling up a little, and he gives a short tug, just enough to stave off the first throws of his orgasm.

He presses the middle finger of his free hand against his right nipple. The pad is ribbed and smooth against the nub, and he presses harder as it reddens, before pinching it between his thumb and index finger. A shot of pleasure flares down his spine, his dick fluttering against his stomach, and he can’t hold back a breathy groan that starts in his nipple and lodges in his throat. 

He imagines the noises Louis would make when he’s turned on like this. The way his voice would crack and tremble, his accent thickening, spreading over the back of each of his words and Harry moans. It’s- fuck, the thought goes straight through him, ‘til even his pinky toe is thrumming with arousal. 

There’s a line of pre-come hanging between the head of his dick and his stomach, and he gathers it in his right hand, using it to ease his grip as he tightens his fist around his erection. He sucks in a breath at the first touch, biting his lip to muffle what he realizes, at the last moment, is a loud moan, even for him. 

It doesn’t get better though, the groans and sharp intakes of breath that slip through as he gets closer. His feet slip against the sleeping bag, fighting for purchase, his hips rising into each stroke of his fist. When he gets close, he reaches behind him for his makeshift pillow, biting his teeth around the screen-printed blimp and breathing his orgasm into the rough cotton. 

It takes him longer than usual to come down. His body feels heated and swollen, skin tight and raw. He doesn’t pull the sleeping bag over himself as he rolls onto his side, balling the t-shirt back into a pillow and closing his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

In the distance, he can still hear Liam’s snores.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna chat about these silly boys, folk music, or anything else, please comment here or find me on [tumblr](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/)! I'll be sharing all kinds of pictures and songs and fic snippets there on my [A Case of You](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/tagged/a-case-of-you) tag, so come follow me.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a good plan, though. Simple, ballsy, full of plot holes. It’s Harry’s kinda plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs featured in this chapter: "Brandy, You're a Fine Girl" (sung by the Looking Glass; in this fic, written by Louis and Harry - apologies to Looking Glass if that's in some way offensive, but I hope it's more a tribute); "Take it Easy" (written by Glenn Fry, Eagles version referenced here).
> 
> Listen to the whole soundtrack on [8Tracks](http://8tracks.com/lateforthesky/a-case-of-you).

Harry hasn’t slept much over the last few days. Not since his last conversation with Steve and the ultimatum Steve put on them all. One more chance, one more demo, and then they’re done. It’s enough to make Harry’s skin crawl with nerves and anxiety and the feeling that all the dreams he’s ever had are about to come crashing down around his ears. 

It doesn’t escape him that the Steve conversation coincides with the night he met Louis, and that, similarly, that spiders-on-his-skin feeling might have more to do with the way Louis’ eyes follow him, than with his own nerves. But, Harry’s always been pretty good at self-misdirection and he’s just, well, not exactly deluding himself, but he’s definitely not ready to deal with any of it yet.

Not with the way he feels alive with their music for the first time in months. The way Louis’ piano chords thrum through his veins, filling him with adrenaline and excitement and truth like music hasn’t since that first live Bob Dylan gig so many years ago.

Not with the way he’s so much more aware of his body. Of the way he moves, how his ankles turn inwards a little awkwardly, and how his toes dig into the sand to keep himself upright after a few beers. Of the way he leans towards Louis even if he’s feet away, how Harry’s skin feels, tight and foreign, like it doesn’t entirely belong to him anymore.

So, Harry ignores his over-drive senses. Ignores the seagull cries that pierce his ears as if they’re perched on his shoulders, like impressionistic Jackson Pollock-inspired parrots. Ignores the sand, gruff and pebbled through the thin fabric of his tent and the inadequate nylon layer of his sleeping bag. Ignores the way their very typical meat-and-beans taste like heaven, like he hasn’t eaten in years, just because Louis’ knee brushes against his when they sit around the fire for dinner.

And when he wakes with the dawn every morning, the sun beating down bright and warm and insistent, he pushes every thought of Louis away and trudges down to the beach, blaming his inability to sleep on Steve and Rebel Records and their ridiculous ultimatums.

No one else is awake. Won’t be, for hours yet. So, Harry settles low on the beach, just close enough to the water that the ocean licks against his toes on particularly high waves. It’s quiet, peaceful, perfect for writing, and he opens his notebook. It’s a well-worn black moleskin, started the day he left New York, and more than three-quarters full. Flipping to the latest page, Harry stares at the angry cross-outs and distracted doodles, before focusing on the bottom left corner, just a few lines of a verse he actually likes. 

It’s a ballad about a woman who lives on the sea, tends bar for sailors and migrants, dreams of love and the ocean and a stability she knows she’ll never find. The idea’s been simmering for a while, ever since he had lunch with Gemma and she told him about running into this girl, Brandy, at the fish market sometime last spring. She’d made an impression on Gemma, and Gemma had, in turn, imprinted the story on Harry’s mind.

He finds himself thinking about Brandy sometimes, usually on long car trips or in the quiet hours before a gig, finds himself drawn to her sadness and her unwavering belief in love. Harry feels an affinity for her, even though they’ve never met, never will, except in song.

In those moments, he finds himself humming sailors’ chords, writing halves of lines. He’s never been super happy with any of it, until the morning after Louis arrived, when Harry woke up with a few lines fully formed in his mind. He doesn’t know where they came from, and he doesn’t know where they’re going, but he likes them. A lot.

He strums a few bars on his old guitar, simple and a little upbeat, to counteract the sad, resigned feeling of the lyrics. His toes tap out a rhythm in the sand, sending salt water splashing up his ankles. If he closes his eyes, he can almost reach out and grab them, the last two lines of the second verse.

“Don’t you ever wear any clothes?”

Harry opens his eyes, squinting as he looks up into the mild sun to see Louis standing over him, hands on his hips, mock-pout on his lips.

“Sorry if my body offends you.”

“It, ahh-” Louis licks his lips, his eyes shuttering as if he’s trying, hard, not to look. Interesting. “You can do whatever you like with your skinny ass. No skin off my back.”

“So, I shouldn’t count on you joining my nudist colony then?” Harry snaps his fingers. “Damn. I was really depending on you, Lou.”

“Well, I might be convince-able. You never know.” Louis sits cross-legged on the sand next to him, his knee overlapping Harry’s bare thigh.

Harry freezes his muscles, willing himself not to react.

Louis doesn’t seem to notice, busying himself with Harry’s notebook, which he pulls into his lap. Sand falls from the binding onto Louis’ thighs and the pages crinkle with dried salt water as he turns the pages. “What’s this?”

Harry shrugs, feeling suddenly shy and a little bit violated. “A song I’m working on.” Louis traces the lines of “Brandy” with his fingertips and Harry shivers as if Louis is, actually, trailing his fingers over Harry’s body.

“Play it for me?”

“It’s, um, not done.” Harry shrugs. “It’s not even a song, really.”

Louis smiles with the side of his mouth. “Play your not-song, then.”

Harry settles the guitar further in his lap. “It’s gonna be rough,” he warns, before he picks out the first couple chords. 

_There’s a port on a western bay_  
And it serves a hundred ships a day  
Lonely sailors pass the time away  
And talk about their homes 

_And there’s a girl in this harbor town  
Loves the sea, and her cool blue gown_

Louis laughs, high and bright, and Harry flushes, resting his guitar in his lap and keeping his eyes trained on the bit of wet sand he’s been digging with his left big toe.

“Told you it was rubbish.”

“No, no.” Louis pats Harry’s shoulder, then leaves his hand there, palm warm and steadying against Harry’s bare skin. “Well, that last line was rubbish, yeah, but the rest of it. The rest of it was good.”

“Yeah?” Harry risks a glance at him, tipping his head so that he has to look up at Louis, feeling stupid and vulnerable. Which is dumb; he met Louis while playing a song he wrote, himself. But, Harry’s starting to get the feeling that nothing will ever feel old, or done before, when it comes to Louis.

“Yeah.” Louis nods, taking his hand from Harry’s shoulder and resting it on the sand behind them. His chest is pressed against Harry’s back, as if he wants to feel the vibrations of the music through Harry’s skin. “Play the chords of the verse again?”

Harry does, layering them slowly, repetitively, circling back to the beginning again and again, until they settle under Harry’s skin, feel comfortable, a part of him.

Louis hooks his chin over Harry’s shoulder. “Okay, now, that first verse.”

Harry plays the chords twice more, before he sings, his voice low over the sounds of the seagulls and the low wind.

_There’s a port on a western bay_  
And it serves a hundred ships a day  
Lonely sailors- 

Louis’ voice joins his, his accent crashing over the words like the ocean at high tide and Harry stops singing to listen to him.

Louis pinches his side. “Why’d you stop?”

Harry shakes his head. If Louis really doesn’t know how good he is- “Sorry. Just- again?”

He picks up the first verse again, harmonizing with Louis through the whole thing this time, only trailing off at the end of the first verse as Louis picks up the second on his own. His voice is low, a little slow, as if he’s writing the words as he sings them, and Harry slows his fingers to match the guitar to Louis’ pace.

 _There’s a girl in this harbor town_  
And she works, layin’ whiskey down  
They say-

Louis pauses. “What’s her name?”

Harry picks up the line.

_They say ‘Brandy, fetch another round’_

And Louis smiles, knocking his chin against Harry’s shoulder, like he approves, before he finishes it off.

_And she serves them whiskey and wine_

They play through the full verse, together, and then Harry throws his guitar to the sand, dislodging Louis’ chin as he turns to look at him, grinning and happy and giddy. Louis grins right back, his teeth bright and big, the crinkles of his mouth joining with the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and-

Jesus, Harry just wants to kiss him.

He settles for pressing his thumb to Louis’ jean-clad thigh and grinning at him, dimples and morning hair and amazement. “You’re a songwriter.”

Louis ducks his head. “Nah.”

“No, but, Lou.” Harry presses his thumb harder into Louis’ thigh and he’s pretty sure Louis presses into it. Mostly sure, at least. “I’ve been working on that verse for ages and you just- in a few minutes- and it’s, like, brilliant.” He dims his smile, just enough for Louis to know that he’s completely sincere when he says, “thank you.”

“I, um, no problem.” Louis bumps his shoulder, a little longer than necessary, Harry thinks. “The words just came to me, while you were playing. I didn’t really do anything.”

“You wrote a song. That’s everything.”

“Part of a song.”

Harry rolls his eyes, pushing back against Louis’ side so that he tips sideways into the sand. “Fine, part of a song.”

Louis laughs, picking up a handful of sand and rubbing it into Harry’s hair. “You, Harry Styles, are the sandiest muse I’ve ever seen.”

Harry ducks his head, running his hands through his hair and sending sand everywhere.

Louis clucks his tongue. “Sad, really. So much talent gone to waste.”

“Everyone has an Achilles’ heel.” _Mine is you_. And, Jesus, Harry doesn’t even know where the thought came from, but he does know that Louis would run a thousand miles away if he ever heard it. If he ever even guessed it. 

Louis’ stomach growls, and Harry’s never been so happy for the distraction.

“And yours, it seems, is that black hole you call a stomach.” Harry pokes at Louis’ belly as he scrambles to his feet, still brushing sand out of his hair as he reaches for his guitar and the notebook that feel to the ground in their rough-housing. “Let’s go feed you, yeah?”

“I love you,” Louis sighs, eyes blue and adoring.

Harry hates his life.

***

“Not good?” Harry asks, nodding to the spoon Liam is twisting through his oatmeal without actually eating any of it. Harry’s not exactly the best cook, but none of the other lads do much cooking at all, so without him they’d probably all whither away on this beach.

“Huh? Oh, no, it’s brilliant.” Liam drops his spoon against the side of the bowl, resting it in his lap and stretching his feet out so his toes are inches from their cook fire. “Just, it’s a big day today, yeah?”

They should be used to these big days by now. Gig days. Demo days. Days spent in meeting after meeting with the label, although those have been pretty sparse recently. They don’t get any easier, though, and Harry’s stomach doesn’t feel any less tied up in anchor knots. Besides, today is different. Today-

“Yeah.” Niall finishes off his oatmeal and spoons another portion into his bowl. Harry really idealizes Niall’s iron stomach. “Our last shot, boys, we’ve gotta make it count.”

“No pressure, eh?” Zayn laughs, short and a little desperate. He’s wearing a beanie, pulled low over his eyes, a little red from lack of sleep and a little glassy from his first hit of the morning.

“Nah, it’s cool. We’ve got a secret weapon.” Niall elbows Louis. 

Louis flails his hands, pretending to fall off the log, and glaring at Niall’s elbow. “Ehh, man, what’d I ever do to you? Except be fabulous and save this band?” To Harry, though, he looks terrified. His smile is too tight over the joke and the corners of his eyes, this morning crinkled in mirth, look strained.

Harry wishes he could do something to ease the pressure, but, this is just an important day, and there isn’t much he can do to ease that. Except, maybe, clean the dishes while Liam goes through the plan, again.

First step, get Rebel Records to believe enough in their new sound to come to the gig. Liam’s job, as Rebel considers Liam the sensible one. Jokes on them.

Second step, get a spot at the Troubadour’s Monday Night Hoot. Which involves a lot of standing around in the middle of the afternoon in the blazing LA sun, waiting to get their names on the top of the sign-in sheet. That’s Harry’s job. Mostly because he’s forcing Gemma to stand with him in the name of “sibling bonding, come on Gem, don’t you miss me?” The pout works every time, even over the phone.

Third step, play their asses off for three songs, wow the crowd, convince Rebel to fund one last demo. All chips on the table. No pressure.

It’s a good plan, though. Simple, ballsy, full of plot holes. It’s Harry’s kinda plan.

He feels a hand on his waist and he turns, dripping water from the bowl he’s washing onto Liam’s shoes. “Sorry.”

Liam shakes his head. “It’s cool. Um, mind if we leave a little early?”

“Sure.” Harry puts the bowl back under the water, finishing it quickly and putting it with the others to dry in the warm California air. He wipes his hands on his pants, still the only article of clothing he’s wearing. “Why?”

“I’m feeling a little-” Liam glances at the fire circle, just a few feet away, where Zayn and Louis are trying to see how close they can push each other into the flames. “ – under pressure today.”

Harry knows what Liam’s trying to say, is the only one who knows. It’s rare that Liam asks for help these days, and Harry jumps, immediately. “Let me just put clothes on and we can head out, yeah?”

Liam nods but when Harry moves away, he reaches out, wrapping his fingers around Harry’s wrist. “Thanks, Haz.”

Harry smiles, reaching up to pat Liam’s cheek. “Any time. You know that.”

***

LA is two hours south of Santa Barbara and, from the moment Harry pulls the VW bus onto the 101, Liam stares out the window. He rests his chin in his hand, the wind through the open window blowing through what little hair he has. 

He looks thoughtful, a little sad, the set of his shoulders rougher than Harry’s seen in over a year. It scares Harry, more than it should, and he reaches over, bumping Liam’s thigh with his fist. Liam doesn’t look at him, but he does spread his hand over Harry’s and leave it there. His palm is clammy.

Liam was in bad shape when they first met. Even if it had taken Harry a while to realize that Liam wasn’t the put-together, self-confident, going-somewhere-and-he-knows-it musician he had seemed to be in the beginning. 

The night after their first meeting at the Troubadour, Harry had shown up at Liam’s house, guitar and stolen – borrowed, he maintains, as he bought the club another one with his first Rebels Records paycheck – bottle of Jack in his hands. He didn’t get it, then, that Liam’s bright smile and the heavy, possessive arm he had thrown over Harry’s shoulders were more about the whiskey than Harry’s music.

Two weeks in, though, when it was still just Harry and Liam jamming on Liam’s front porch, writing beautiful, unmarketable songs, Harry had broached the subject of forming a real band. And Liam had thrown him out.

Harry returned a few hours later, lecture already written and bouncing around his head, full of words like “responsibility” and “for the music” and “I want to eat more than cans of refried beans for the rest of my life.” Liam was already waiting for him, though, strung out in the same chair Harry had left him in that afternoon, drunk out of his mind and high on what Harry has always presumed was cocaine, although Liam has never confirmed it. 

It was going around, though. Jackson Browne was doing it, David Crosby, James Taylor. All the people Liam, and Harry, looked up to. It was, they all said, “necessary for the music,” the best way “to discover life.”

Over the next few months, Liam and Harry figured out how to make music without chemical enhancements. It was slow, hard; no, near-impossible. Harry remembers sitting in one of those first AA meetings, listening to the statistics – thinking that, if something like 15% of serious addicts have a meaningful recovering, that’s an 85% chance that Liam won’t, that Harry could lose him – and crying into Liam’s shoulder. It was, in so many ways, both of their recoveries. Even though, for the most part, Liam had to do it alone, with all the dedication and stubbornness and force of will that he possesses.

Liam is the strongest person Harry’s ever known.

He squeezes Liam’s hand, loosening his fingers so that he can thread them through Liam’s.

Liam squeezes back, turning his head to give Harry a smile. It’s small but it’s real, and something loosens in Harry’s chest.

“I’m okay,” Liam promises. “It’s just an important day and I thought, well, we could use all the help we can get.”

Harry nods. Out the window, the Pacific Ocean is getting smaller and smaller as the 101 veers inland, preparing them for the city ahead. “You know, what Niall said at breakfast? About this being our last shot? It’s not.”

Liam sighs. “I don’t know. He might be right.”

“He’s not.” Harry’s not sure of many things, but their music, he’s sure of that. “We’re good, Li. So good.”

Liam’s smile broadens. It’s beautiful to see. “When’d you get so smart?”

Harry doesn’t bother to hide his dimples as he smiles a real, broad, smile.

***

The West Hollywood Community Center is exactly how Harry remembers it. The paint peeling on the walls, the cracked ceiling tiles, the rickety, grade school style chairs, as if the addicts of Hollywood’s elite can’t spare a few dimes for the place that holds them together.

Harry figures they keep it like this on purpose. As a reminder or a fear tactic or something. Harry doesn’t know. He’s pretty tired, and it’s only noon.

They choose seats in the back of the room, in a shaft of sunshine coming in through the open window. Harry rests his head on Liam’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around Liam’s elbow, and lets the yells and clangs and chugging of car exhausts lull him into a light doze.

He wakes with Liam’s elbow in his ribs. The room has filled with people, sipping lemonade and eating butter cookies. Liam holds one out for Harry, and he takes it gratefully, rubbing his eyes with the back of his free hand. They feel gummy, but he feels pretty refreshed. Enough, at least, to straighten in his seat and focus his attention on the young woman at the front of the room.

It’s not a long meeting. It’s the middle of the day on a Monday, and most of the attendees are just happy to have survived the weekend.

Liam, himself, only says a few words, standing in front of his chair and leaning his knee into Harry’s shoulder gently. “Hi, I’m Liam. I’m an alcoholic and I’ve been in recovery for eighteen months. I just need a reminder of that today, I guess.”

“Welcome Liam. Our doors are open, anytime.”

The meeting is good for him. As they head back out into the early afternoon sun, hands full of cookies, Liam’s shoulders have relaxed and his arms swing as they walk, bumping, periodically, against Harry’s.

“Thanks, you know, for coming with me.”

“Always. It’s a good reminder for me, too.” And it is. Harry has the dangerous habit of feeding off the emotions of others around him, and all the stress from the rest of the boys had been getting to him, sinking into his skin. He feels better, now. Calmer, more confident, ready for the gig of his life.

“Okay, so, wish me luck?” Liam stops at the street corner, Rebel Records’ offices to the right and the Troubadour to the left.

Harry raises his hand to his forehead in a sharp salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Smartass.” Liam pulls him into a hug, hands big and warm on Harry’s hips for a moment before he pulls back, waves stupidly, and heads to Rebel to beg for one, last, chance.

***

Harry’s the fifth one in line at the Troubadour. Which isn’t bad, but not great either. They’ll probably end up singing third or fourth, after the crowd’s settled into their seats, but before they’re ready to take the music seriously.

Harry settles into the ground, leaning against the brick wall of the club, crossing his ankles and opening his notebook in his lap. He pauses on the page with the “Brandy” verse, running through the memory in his head. And, Jesus, that had only been a few hours ago, in that strange moment between dawn and full sun, where things happen that don’t actually make it into the light of day.

A perfect beginning to an important day. Biting his lip between his teeth, Harry sings the new lines under his breath, the ones he and Louis wrote, together, as he scrawls them at the bottom of the page. They look good in Harry’s curved handwriting, and Harry takes the time to add a series of birds cutting across the words. It’s the design of a tattoo he’s been thinking about. Not, he thinks, for him, but, for someone. Someone- bird-like.

He’s sketching deep pen lines into the “B” of “Brandy” when he feels a sharp kick to the bottom of his foot and looks up to see Gemma grinning at him. She holds up a brown paper bag, grease oozing out the bottom, in greeting. “I brought burgers from Tommy’s.”

“I love you,” Harry says, in all sincerity. He closes his notebook, slipping it back into his sac, before reaching for the bag and the bottle of ice tea that goes with.

She laughs, nudging his knee with the toe of her sandal. Her toes are painted lavender.

“They’re nice,” Harry tells her, through a mouthful of fries.

“Budge over.” He scoots closer to the guy on his left and she settles next to him, leaning against his shoulder and reaching over to steal a fry. “And, thanks. I’m trying a new color.”

The grease and protein of the burger taste great, after a weak of oatmeal, BBQ beans, and the loafs of sweet cinnamon bread Zayn is always buying at the Santa Barbara bakery. That bread is fucking awesome, but not, like, good nutrition or anything.

“Suits you,” he eventually gets out, when he’s halfway through the burger and feeling a little sated. “Glad you could come down.”

She snorts. “I’d much rather spend an afternoon hanging with you than in my econ lecture.”

“Isn’t he the really fit professor?”

“World lit,” she says, way too quickly, avoiding his eyes unnecessarily as she grabs, blindly, for a handful of fries.

And Harry knows that look. Knows it so well. “You didn’t?” Harry knows his voice is way too gleeful, but, shit, really?

She points a fry at him, furrowing her brow in something approaching a stern glare, the effect entirely ruined by the blush reaching to the tips of her ears and disappearing below the loose collar of her shirt. “Don’t breath a word of this to mom.”

Harry holds up his hands, half a hamburger still clutched between his fingers and ketchup making a mess of his palm. “Cone of silence. Promise.”

Gemma eyes him speculatively, which is fair. It’s not that Harry means to spill her secrets, it’s just that he has no defenses against their mother’s big eyes and guilty voice. All she has to say is, “with both of you all the way across the country,” and Harry’s done, telling her everything before he even realizes it.

“You’re the worst.” Gemma rolls her eyes, punching his shoulder. Harder than necessary, he’s pretty sure; or, she’s just a hell of a lot stronger than he is. Probably the latter. He should work on that.

“I just feel bad.” Has, since he took off for LA and Gemma followed a few months later to start her freshman year at UCLA. At least Gemma gets to go back on some of her breaks. Harry, on the other hand, lives on a beach and can barely afford canned food, and hasn’t been home in over a year.

He finishes off the burger and crosses his legs, resting his elbows on his ankles and turning his head to flash his eyelashes at her. He’s learned a lot from their mother over the years. “So, this econ professor?”

“World lit,” she corrects automatically, then sighs, sinking into his shoulder. “Stop that, it’s not fair. I fall for it every time.”

He shrugs and her body moves, weightlessly, against him. “He’s fit, yeah?”

“Gorgeous. Blue eyes, a little grey,” she touches her temple, where her hair is braided in an intricate Stevie Nicks-esque design.

“Grave robber.”

“Distinguished.”

“Potato, potahto,” Harry sing-songs in his best, slow, surfer-dude, American accent.

“Whatever. Older men are experienced.” She tries to maintain his gaze, but he widens his eyes and she ducks her head, the flush spreading across her shoulders, clashing with the eggplant purple of her top. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“No, no, keep going. I might just write another song about you.”

She turns her head, looking up at him through the waterfall of her hair. “Another?”

“Um.” It’s Harry’s turn to look at the ground, picking, absently, at bits of stone on the sidewalk. “That story you told me a few months ago, about Brandy? I’ve been writing about it. A little.”

“H, that’s-” Her smile is genuine, light and reserved against her bottom lip, as if she’s afraid of over-stepping her boundaries or, maybe, afraid that saying something too strong, too fast, will scare what little inspiration Harry’s rediscovered scurrying away. “You’re writing again. That’s great.”

“Yeah, I’ve, ahh,” he plays with the edge of his hair, pushing it further up his forehead. “It’s not much, and I’ve had help, but, yeah.” 

Last time he saw her, a month or so ago on a quick trip to her dorm, he had been in a fairly bad place. Tired of the never-ending ‘try again’ memos from the label, desperate for a little distance between himself and the boys, and a few weeks into a severe case of writer’s blog that rendered him shaky and intense.

“Help?” Leave it to Gemma to pick out the most important part of his admittance. She knows him dangerously well.

“Yeah. That new bandmate I was telling you about. ‘is name’s Louis.” Harry picks at a loose string in his jeans, connecting a floral patch to the denim on his thigh. If he looks at her, he is absolutely certain that she’ll read every one of his feelings in his eyes. She’s so fucking good at that. “And he’s got an ear for music. Doesn’t know it yet, but, he does.”

Fond. Definitely too fond.

“That’s-” She bites the inside of her cheek, a habit she learned from their step-father, something he reserves for their mother’s particularly stubborn moments, and hesitates before settling on, “ - fantastic.”

“It’s a music thing,” he says, before she can draw any other conclusions.

“Right, totally a music thing.” _For now_ , she tacks on with her tone and the way she links her elbow around his. “When do I get to meet this music thing?”

Letting them meet each other seems like a terrible – like, the most absolute of all terrible – ideas. “When do I get to meet this distinguished World Lit thing of yours?”

She buries her forehead in his shoulder and lets the topic drop.

***

The boys pull up a half-hour or so after Gemma leaves, supposedly for a bio lab, but Harry’s money is on the professor. Especially since she made a special effort to extract another promise of his silence, whispering in his ear as he hugged her goodbye. 

Harry’s snagged them a table near the middle of the room and ordered a round of whiskey sours and a soda water for Liam. He’ll probably hate it, but, after this morning, Harry doesn’t care a whole lot about that.

He hears them before he sees them, Niall’s deeply accented “Harry, boy, it’s been so _long_ ” and Louis’ louder, “we’ve missed you _all day_.” Zayn trails behind them, muttering things about “stupid bandmates” and “it’s only been a few hours” under his breath.

Harry laughs, accepting Niall’s hug, ruffling his blond hair and laying a loud, wet kiss to the side of his cheek. Niall makes a face, pulling away and making a show of wiping it off with his napkin before downing half his drink in the first go.

“Can’t take him anywhere.” Louis says, pulling Harry into a hug of his own, his hands spread over Harry’s hips, his body curving into Harry’s, the denim of his jacket lingering against the bare skin of Harry’s arm, making him shiver and want more, more of Louis, more of everything.

“Never could,” Harry manages, sounding only a little choked as he pushes Louis away, as much for his own sanity as for propriety. The Troubadour is known for two things – as a place to find new folk music talent and to find sex – and Harry is here for the first. Tonight, at least.

“Where’d we end up?” Zayn asks, as he leans over Louis’ shoulder to slap Harry’s back in greeting.

Zayn always asks the real questions. Harry loves him for it.

“Fourth.” Harry shrugs. Sixth is the best slot in the house, so fifth or seventh would have been better, but it was the best three hours waiting in line could get him. 

“Good, good.” Zayn fingers the sleeve of his jacket. “Not gonna lie, I’m a little nervous.”

“Wanna-?” Louis makes a pot-smoking motion, and Zayn’s shoulders instantly relax.

“Yeah, that’d be great. You carrying?”

Louis nods, patting his pocket. “You guys want?”

Niall shakes his head. “Messes with my head before gigs. Gotta stay focused, you know?”

Louis shrugs. “Hazza?”

Harry wants to say yes. He wants to share this with Louis, wants to share everything with Louis, wants to lean against the building in the smoggy LA dusk air and pass a joint between them, fingers and lips and thighs brushing through the joint, literally or metaphorically, Harry doesn’t really care which. 

He’s not a big smoker though. It tends to fuck him up, make him paranoid, and then make him so curious about why he’s paranoid that he can’t stop smoking for days, until he either figures out the meaning of the universe or runs out of money to keep buying. It never ends well and this gig, tonight, this has to end well.

So, he shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good.”

Harry’s thinks Louis looks disappointed, just a flash across his brow. He might have imagined it, though. Things are always a little hazy in the Troubadour, through the cigarette smoke, the buzz of alcohol, and the bass beat continually playing under it all.

Louis does, however, give Harry a little wave as he follows Zayn into the alleyway out back. Harry watches them go, for quite a bit longer than he should, and when he turns back, Niall is rolling his eyes.

“In the band, mate. It’s a terrible idea.”

“I know.”

“And we’ve worked really hard for this. You and me and Liam and Zayn.”

“I know.” Harry’s throat feels stuck and those are the only words that can slip past.

***

_Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, late 1973_

“Harry, come on, we’re gonna be late.”

“Hold on,” Harry calls through the closed bathroom door.

“In fact,” Liam continues, ignoring him, his voice frustratingly steady. He must be leaning right outside the door. “We’re already late.”

Harry doesn’t bother answering this time. He runs the brush through his hair, frowning in the mirror at the way it insists on curling up around his ears, rather than frame his face in pleasant wisps. He sighs, pulling a beanie off the bathroom shelves he calls a closet at Liam’s tiny garden apartment.

Sometimes, he really questions his decision to leave his job at the Troubadour and his nice, sunny apartment on Santa Monica Boulevard for a spot on Liam’s couch and a curtained off bit of privacy in the corner of the living room. He misses privacy. Also, free food and whiskey. Not, so much, the whole sweeping floors-thing.

Liam bangs his fist on the door. It rattles on its rusty hinges. “Harry.”

Harry counts the rhythm of Liam’s fists, and times his opening of the door so that Liam is thrown off balance and has to catch himself on the doorframe.

“Oi.”

Harry ducks under his arm, not offering any sense of balance or support. “Have you seen my coat? The green one.”

“With the sunflower on the back?” Liam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, it was over there.” He waves in the general direction of the couch and Harry crouches down behind it, pulling the coat out from under the bed. It’s dusty, and smells a little of fish and vinegar and, right, that fish and chips shop on the corner of 7th. He’d forgotten about that.

If he doesn’t wear it he’ll regret it, though, when he’s cold and shivering and begging Liam to cuddle him in the middle of the street, so he pulls it on anyway, shoving his hands in the pockets and standing at the door, tapping his foot. “Ready?”

Liam shakes his head, like there’s so much he wants to say, but decides to keep all but a well-emphasized “wanker” under his tongue.

Turns out the coat was a good idea. Harry’s embarrassed to admit it, but his Cheshire-born, NY-raised body has adapted to Southern California weather whole-heartedly. December days, all of twelve degrees and not a flurry to be seen, settle into his bones now in a way zero and sleet never used to.

Which is why, of course, they’re sitting at an outside table for this meeting with the record label. Something about manliness and surviving the elements, but also a lot about Rebel being stingy with their lower-end clients and hoping, probably, that the brisk air will keep them from ordering a second drink with lunch.

“Look, we like you, we do.” His name is David but he looks more like a Peter, with small, metal frames perched on his nose and a tie pressed so tight to his throat that Harry’s not sure his brain’s actually getting enough oxygen. His face flushes red every time he talks, little splotches on the edges of his cheekbones and the center of his forehead. Harry’s, honestly, kinda worried about him.

Thank god Liam’s more worried about their careers, leaning back in his chair, hands crossed in his lap, looking chill and casual and not at all the fluttering, flailing mess Harry’s pretty sure he’s been all meal. “We’re glad to hear that.”

“But.” David reaches up and actually tightens his tie. Harry can’t tear his eyes away from the pinched skin of his neck, and feels his own twinge in sympathy. “We can’t sell a duo.”

“I don’t see why not. Duo’s are killing it at the moment. Steely Dan.”

“Simon and Garfunkel,” Harry adds. This is a part of the conversation he can actually contribute to.

Liam nods, adding, “Sonny and Cher.”

“Oh, that’s a good one.” Harry thinks for a moment. “Hall and Oates.”

“Boys, boys.” David holds up his hand, the one holding a glass of wine even though neither Harry nor Liam are drinking. “We know the history.” 

Harry doubts that, but, for now he’ll let it go.

“But, the way we see it at Rebel Records, duos are on their way out. Super groups are all the rage now.”

And that, well, Harry can’t really argue with that, but it’s not exactly a helpful note. Unless the record label’s ready to pull some strings and get Joni Mitchell or David Crosby or James Taylor to be their front person. Somehow, Harry thinks that, if Rebel’s not willing to spring for a table inside on a fairly quiet Tuesday, that’s highly unlikely. Like, on the level of Brezhnev-defecting-to-the-US unlikely.

“Look, bottom line? You’ve got decent voices, you’re cute, you’re young, we can sell that. But, your music is thin. Find a couple bandmates, make a demo, come back to us in a couple of months.” He gets up, folding his napkin carefully next to his plate and digs a number of bills out of his wallet. “I have a meeting back at the office, but stay as long as you’d like.”

“Well, that could have gone better,” Liam says, speaking over Harry’s, “that went okay.”

Okay, yeah, so maybe they could use another member or two to balance them out.

“That was always the plan, yeah?” Harry asks, waving their waitress over. No reason to  
squander a label-paid meal. “Can we get two teas, black, please, and-” He peruses the menu, “it’s  
my friend’s birthday, so can we get him a piece of chocolate cake?”

She clucks her tongue, everything about her screaming ‘musicians’ in that resigned, haughty way  
only waitresses on the Strip can have. “Do you have proof?”

Harry pats his pockets, before turning his stage smile on her. “No, I’m sorry, we left our licenses  
at home. So forgetful, I know, our apologies. He really does love cake, though.”

She clucks her tongue again, but scrawls a note on her pad before cleaning up their lunch plates  
and walking away.

“Put those dimples away, Harold. They’re a safety hazard.”

“Got you cake, didn’t they?”

“Remains to be seen.”

Their waitress does bring them a piece of cake. It doesn’t have a candle in it and she doesn’t sing them a rousing – or, an un-arousing – rendition of Happy Birthday, but all Harry really wanted was the free cake, so whatever. She only leaves them one fork, however, as if she knows exactly how much Liam hates to share his plate.

“Worst birthday ever.” Liam waves the fork in Harry’s direction.

“I’ll try harder next time.” Harry cups his tea between his palms, pressing his fingers to the ceramic in an attempt to warm them. “Like, on your actual birthday.”

“Sure.”

It hurts, really, that Liam doesn’t have more faith in him. Harry lets that sink in, quietly, as he sips his tea and lets Liam have the bulk of the cake. This is a perfect location, really, for people watching, a few blocks from the Troubadour, a few more from the Ash Grove, at the intersection of Hollywood glamour, the glitz of rock ‘n’ roll, and the roots of folk.

And the people look it.

Women in stilettos and mink coats, walking arm-and-arm with men with long, white beards and teva sandals, despite the chill. Young men, dressed in patchwork bellbottoms and clunky Cowboy belts tucked over Elton John-inspired shimmering shirts. All either rushing to their next very important date, or lounging on street corners, cigarettes pressed between their fingers, playing music and practicing comedy routines.

There’s one guy across the street, perched on an unturned garbage can, who catches Harry’s eye. He’s playing a bright pink ukulele, the small instrument cradled in his bent knee, and Harry can’t hear him from this far away, but from the way his hands move-

“Li.” Harry elbows Liam, pointing in the guy’s direction.

They both watch for a long moment as passersby stop to watch the guy. Many throw coins and bills into the open case sitting at his feet and, in Harry’s experience, that’s a good sign. Los Angeleons aren’t the most giving of people, generally.

“David did say we should start a band.” Liam finishes off the cake and reaches for his coat. “Let’s go check him out.”

Away from the restaurant’s mini-heaters, Harry really is cold, and he wraps his arms around Liam’s elbow. Liam leans his body into Harry’s, offering his body heat, as they cross the street. The closer they get, the clearer they can hear him, the quick dance of his melody and the definite Irish brogue, and the larger Liam’s smile grows.

It’s good to see Liam smile like that. It’s been a while.

“Hey lads.” The boy smiles as they approach, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, a smile. “What can I play you?”

Liam shrugs and Harry says, “Whatever you’d like. This is your show.”

“Not the kind of show I’m aiming for, but, I can’t complain.” He nods down the street, to a bright-orange VW bus. “Broke down, minute I hit Santa Monica.”

“Fitting.”

“Right?” His smile is all white teeth and pale lips. “Figured I’d play my way to the nearest gas station, have some fun with it. I’m Niall, by the way.” He doesn’t offer his hand, too busy strumming chords absently. 

“I’m Harry. And this here’s Liam.”

“Pleasure.” The chords pick up a rhythm, bright and sunny and so Californian it’s almost easy to forget how damn Irish this kid is. “How about some Eagles? In honor of this lovely street corner.”

Harry nods, pulling his arm out of Liam’s so that he can tap his feet to Niall’s beat, his hips swaying as Niall starts to sing. He’s fun, his voice a little raw, some notes a little off. But he plays to the crowd, changing up the lyrics when a ladybug-painted VW Beetle flies past them, and the things he does with a ukulele- Harry doesn’t know how to put it into words.

 _Well I’m a-standing on a corner in_ Southern California  
 _Such a fine site to see_  
It’s a girl, my lord, in a bright red bug  
 _Slowing down to have a look at me_

By the second chorus, Harry’s feeling it strumming through him, and he joins in, singing a deeper, tonal base line under Niall’s.

_Well come on baby, don’t say maybe  
I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me_

And then Liam adds his voice down the middle, and Harry knows, in a momentary flash of harmonies, that this is one of those moments that will stand out in his memory years down the line.

_We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again  
So open up, I’m climbing in, to take it easy_

Niall plays with a riff on his ukulele, grinning at Liam and Harry the whole while.

“You guys are good.” A woman in a lavender sweater says, as she drops a few bills into the open case at Niall’s feet.

“Thanks,” Harry grins, before turning to Niall, digging his hands into his pockets. “Look, so, we don’t have any money, but-”

“We have a band,” Liam finishes.

“Part of a band,” Harry amends.

Niall shrugs at them, looking hopeful and young and, in his mind, Harry’s already re-arranging Liam’s one-bedroom flat to fit three people. He’d, for one, give up one of his bathroom shelves for the cause, definitely. 

“That’s more of a band than I have.”

“You can have ours,” Harry offers, reaching over to tap Liam’s hip, just to make sure that they’re on the same page, here. Liam brushes his fingers over Harry’s, still grinning, still happy. “I mean, join ours. You know, if you want.”

Niall shakes his head. “I came here looking for a gig, but, hell, my first day? LA’s a crazy place, man.”

“You get used to it,” Liam lies. 

Niall looks startled. “I hope not.”

Harry likes him. Like, likes him a lot.

“But, hell, yeah, okay. I’m in.”

***

_The Troubadour, LA, 1974_

Niall’s still staring at him, more serious than Harry has ever seen him. Niall, who tells jokes and loves life and should be, like, a bleach-blond member of the Beach Boys or something, is looking at him, worry etched into every line of his face.

“But,” Niall bites his lower lip, his finger circling around the rim of his drink. “But, do what you gotta do, yeah?”

And that, well, Harry loves him for that, a lot. For trusting him, for trusting Louis, for trusting Harry with Louis, even knowing the potential that his addition to the band represents. That they might, finally, have the whole band Harry and Liam promised him so many months ago.

“What do we have to do?” Liam asks, coming up behind them, hands reaching out to clench Niall’s shoulders.

“Play our hearts out tonight,” Niall grins, tipping his head back to brush against Liam’s stomach.

Harry raises his glass. “Cheers to that.” He doesn’t actually take a sip, though, as he watches Liam, looking for a hint, in the tilt of his head, the muscles of his shoulders, the curve of his smile. It bothers him, sometimes, how hard Liam is to read, still. “So?” He prompts, giving up.

Liam uses his foot to pull out the chair next to Niall, reaching for the soda water and grimacing at the taste. “Worst stuff, that.” He waves their waitress over to order a coffee.

Harry raises an eyebrow. “Caffeine?”

“Gotta put on a good show for the execs, yeah?”

Niall whoops, loud enough to send heads turning in their direction. He doesn’t tone it down, though, as he hits Liam on the shoulder. “They said yes?”

“Wasn’t excited about it, but, yeah, David said he’ll drop by.”

“Really?”

Liam laughs. “Really.”

“Well,” Niall straightens in his chair, downing his glass and thumping it against the table, “we better get ready, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna chat about these silly boys, folk music, or anything else, please comment here or find me on [tumblr](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/)! I'll be sharing all kinds of pictures and songs and fic snippets there on my [A Case of You](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/tagged/a-case-of-you) tag, so come follow me.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry wants Louis from the moment they meet.
> 
> He falls in love with him in the span of a moment, days later, on the stage together at The Troubadour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs featured in this chapter: [A Friend of the Devil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9SKxL9CnW0) (Grateful Dead), [All You Need is Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ98qac2UIM) (The Beatles), [When You Awake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkWq8bBirKg) (The Band), [Ain't No Sunshine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdIqbv7SPo) (Bill Withers), [For No One](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WrY0NH6IME) (The Beatles), [Don't Think Twice, It's Alright](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3KMLwsS6CQ) (Bob Dylan), [I Got You Babe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80QHRTQ3Kmw) (Sonny and Cher).
> 
> Also, here's the [8tracks playlist](http://8tracks.com/lateforthesky/a-case-of-you). And some info on [The Troubadour](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/post/99620172773/the-troubadour-9081-santa-monica-blvd-west).

Harry wants Louis the moment he sees him, leaning against the Arlington in tight jeans and a loose Ramones t-shirt, all big smiles and big confidence to cover a hint of sadness. Louis takes without asking, inserts himself into every inch of Harry’s life, capturing Harry with smiles and laughter and easy, thoughtless touches. All without apprehension, without regret, without having to think it through, first, in songs.

Harry wants Louis from the moment they meet.

He falls in love with him in the span of a moment, days later, on the stage together at The Troubadour.

***

“We’re gonna start with one of our favorites off _American Beauty,_ if that’s alright?”

There are a few, scattered claps, more for the Grateful Dead, Harry thinks, than for them, but he’ll take it. 

“Okay, so, Niall, wanna start us off? This is ‘Friend of the Devil.’”

Niall starts the quick guitar intro, his fingers flying across his strings with an added flare, layered over Harry’s simpler, melodic chords. It sounds good, practiced, different from the original but still respectful. He and Niall have spent so many night laying awake, riffing, building off each other, learning their styles so that they're hardly two separate people when they play.

They’ve played this song before, many times, and they fly through Liam’s opening solo and Harry’s on the second verse, before they all join in on the second chorus.

_Set out runnin’ but I take my time_  
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine  
If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight 

It sounds thick as molasses, running pleasantly through Harry’s veins, smooth and sweet and so much more than it had been when it was just the four of them. It sounds- like everything Harry’s always heard, when he lies awake at night imagining this: them, making it, playing for sold out crowds and selling hit records.

This is it.

And Harry doesn’t feel nervous anymore. He doesn’t care that David’s sitting at a table in the back, sipping a gin and tonic and talking to another executive-type, tie still tight and rigid against his throat. He doesn’t care that half the people at the bar are more interested in picking up than listening to them play. And he doesn’t worry about missing a note or forgetting a word or knocking his mic stand over, because this sound? Their new sound? It’s amazing. Brilliant. Beyond words.

They finish “Friend of the Devil” on Zayn’s falsetto, backed by an original Niall guitar riff. And then Harry slips his guitar around his back, reaching for his mic before Liam can. His throat is tight and sore with everything he's feeling, and he needs to share some of it with everyone else in the room before it strangles him. 

“Hello, Troubadour. Welcome to the first gig of the bigger-and-better Four-” He glances next to him at Louis, who’s avoiding looking at the crowd, but is giving Harry a small, off-balanced smile. “Better make that five, now, huh? We’re the Five Screw Band.” 

Harry’s never really liked their name. It sounds so angry and edgy for a folk-rock band. And, while the Dead have a skeleton for a logo, _screws_ just sounds so much more dangerous. Like the whole audience is risking tetanus just by listening to them. 

It was, unsurprisingly, Rebel’s idea. A Rebel name for a Rebel Record Label. They clearly have a little schizophrenia with their chosen name and their chosen sound, but Harry’s given up reasoning with them a long time ago.

He shakes his head, turning back to the Troubadour crowd. “We thought, for this next song, we’d do something a little closer to home. We’re all from England-”

“ – and Ireland.”

“And Ireland,” Harry amends, throwing a fond smile over his shoulder at Niall, who’s perched on a stool, slide guitar tilting precariously in his lap. “I assume you’ve all heard ‘All You Need is Love.’” He waits for a positive response from the crowd. They’re louder than they were a few minutes ago, which is a good sign. “Yeah? Great. This is our take on it. We hope you like it.”

It’s their own arrangement, stripped down instrumentally and smoothed out vocally. Niall adds his spin on the slide guitar, re-imagining the brass band of the original, building a version of the song for 1974 Los Angeles rather than 1967 London, but still with the same, important, message of union and peace. Harry’s always been a massive fan of The Beatles, of John Lennon in particular, and, for the first time, he feels like they’re doing the song justice.

And if, during his opening verse, he glances at Louis - bent over the piano, forehead flushed under the fringe of his hair, eyes dark and grin splitting his face when he smiles right back at Harry - he’s pretty sure no one’s going to call him on it.

_There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done_  
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung  
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game  
It’s easy 

Not even when Harry tears up a bit at the second line, thinking about music and love and how those two things have, inextricably, been woven together for him. Somewhere deep inside their roots are intertwined, and Harry’s not sure he can have one without the other. He’s not even sure, honestly, that music and love are two different things for him. Not really, not in any meaningful way.

By the time the song's done, Harry feels warm and loose, strung out on this feeling of being on stage, with Louis, with all of them. He watches, barely able to move, as Niall swaps his slide guitar for a steel guitar, and it glints in the low Troubadour light as he leans forward to speak against the mic. “We’re gonna play something new for our last song. The Band is one of our favorites, and, if I’m right, this hasn’t ever been played at the Troubadour before?”

Niall looks at the Troubadour’s owner, Doug Westin, who throws them a thumbs up. Which could mean anything, but Niall decides to take it as an affirmative.

“Right, so, we’ve been working really hard on it, and we hope this gives you a hint of our new sound.”

Harry plays the opening riff, closing his eyes and listening to Louis’s piano melody, slotting them together until they’re joined by Zayn’s steady drum beat and Liam’s bass line.

It sounds beautiful, even if Harry is a little biased. Their five-part harmonies on the chorus sound like they’ve been singing together for months, and Louis’s good on the keys, can keep up with Niall, even. 

_When you believe, you will relieve the only soul  
That you were born with to grow old, and never knew_

It feels good, complete, like Harry’s come home and, Jesus, Harry feels like he’s been missing Louis for years, for long before they met. 

That last line of the chorus has always confused him a little, but singing it on this stage, with these boys, the line settles in Harry’s bones. Richard Manual’s not the most famous of the Band’s members, but Harry’s pretty sure that, if Manual can write songs like this, he and Harry would get along famously.

Louis starts the last verse, and Harry can feel Louis’s eyes on his back, all greys and blues, like the sea at dawn, like just this morning when Louis hooked his chin over Harry’s shoulder and helped him write a song about a heartbroken barmaid. And Harry half-turns his body, opening his shoulders and watching Louis as he sings, 

_We sure gonna love one another all night_

_You may be right and you might be wrong  
I ain’t gonna worry all day long_

Louis’s eyes crinkle at the sides. And he was nervous, Harry knows he was. Knows, by the way Louis’s fingers had curled tightly in the collar of Harry’s shirt during their pre-show huddle. Knows by the slow way Louis had started “Friend of a Devil” and the way it had taken a few moments for him to settle into pitch during their first harmony. Knows, because even though they’ve only known each other for a couple short weeks, Harry can read the tense muscles and strained smiles and quick, thoughtless head shakes to get his hair out of his eyes.

Despite all those nerves, though, Louis appears to be having the time of his life. He’s expressing, outwardly, all the things Harry is feeling. While Harry stands, mostly, in one place, strumming his guitar and leaning, cautiously, into his microphone, Louis is bobbing his head, dancing with his shoulders and hips and feet, moving across the piano keys like he wishes he could be dancing across a catwalk.

And Harry’s always known that it would be music that does him in. He wasn’t, exactly, expecting it to be like this, though. Intense, fierce, needy, in the middle of the most important gig of his life, and Harry pours it into the final lines of harmony, because there’s nowhere else to channel it. Might, perhaps, never be.

_I could wake up in the mornin’ dead_

_And if I thought it would do any good  
I would stand on the rock where Moses stood-_

And then they’re done. Ushered off stage by Doug Westin so the next performer can set up, and Harry feels the most incredible rush of adrenaline and excitement and disappointment that it’s done. 

Also, now that he’s off stage and cooling down in the hallway to the bathroom, he's more than a little worried that, as good as it was, it wasn’t enough.

He’s bumped by a patron, and he stumbles into Louis, holding out a hand to keep the girl from falling. She grasps his hand, but all he feels is the warmth of Louis’s palm on his hip, overheated and sweaty, seeping through the thin fabric of Harry’s shirt.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t see you.” The girl is pretty, dark curls framing her face, her smile coy. None of them notice. “Hey, you’re the band that just got off. You’re good.”

“Ahh, thanks, that’s very kind.”

She winks. “No problem.” Louis’s hand tightens on Harry’s waist, as if he needs a reminder that Louis’s there. As if Harry’s mind isn’t awash in the smell of whisky and pot, the chicken sandwich Louis had for dinner, and the salt of the sea water they’ve been bathing in.

Harry can’t think about anything else. He can’t believe Louis hasn’t figured that out yet.

“Hey,” he says, quietly, leaning into Louis’s body and dropping his hand to rub the knuckle of his middle finger along the back of Louis’s hand. _I’m here, I’m with you, there’s nowhere I’d rather be_ , he says with his body, as says with his voice, “Anyone see David’s reaction?”

Niall shakes his head, and Harry’s pretty sure the grin is affixed to his face at this point. “I was distracted. That was shit, man.”

Harry can’t disagree with that. He’s never felt so alive as he did on that stage, singing their songs to people who actually want to listen, who care, who like them. He leans even further into Louis, who tilts his leg, pressing the inside of his thigh against the outside of Harry’s. Harry has to close his eyes against the rush of arousal, hoping that the boys, Louis included, take the heat in his cheeks as lingering adrenaline.

Zayn shrugs. “I think he was into it. I think, maybe,” Zayn makes a face, “he was even tapping his foot at the end.”

Liam’s eyes widen comically, and Harry turns his head to explain, “he’s a pretty uptight guy,” to Louis. Louis nods, so close that his hair brushes across Harry’s forehead as he moves.

“Well, team, whatever he says today,” Liam says, dropping his head and lowering his voice so that the patrons streaming in and out of the bathroom can’t hear them, “I think we sounded amazing.”

“Really did ourselves proud,” Harry adds, because, yeah, it’s been two years and finally, finally, he feels like he can say that and not feel like a little, hidden part of himself is lying.

Liam nods, then pulls out of their huddle, stepping into the stream of people leading from the bathrooms back into the main room, where someone’s crooning an updated, country version of Frank Sinatra on a banjo. It’s- strange, Harry thinks, as he lingers for a moment, trying to memorize the feeling of Louis’s thigh on his, before he pulls into the traffic behind Zayn.

The hand that was on Harry’s hip immediately goes to the small of Harry’s back, holding onto his shirt, most likely to make sure that they don’t get separated. The Troubadour can be rather intimidating. Harry tries – and fails – to not hope that it means something else, though.

David hasn’t moved from his spot, but, as they approach, he offers them the first smile they’ve gotten in months. He stands, holding out his hand for them to shake. “There you are. Boys, this is Dean Stapleton. He’s working with me at Rebel.”

“Nice to meet you.” Liam holds out his hand to shake Dean’s.

“We hope you enjoyed the show,” Harry says, leaning around Zayn to do the same.

“Take a seat, take a seat. I’ll order us a round of-?” He glances at them all. “Whisky sours, that alright?” He tells the waitress, before they have a chance to answer.

“So,” Liam leans across the table, resting his weight on his elbows and looking every inch the leader that he is. “We hope you got a taste for our new sound. Now that Tommo-”

Louis holds up his hand. “That’s me.”

Harry has to bury his laugh in Louis's collarbone.

“- is on board, we feel that we have a complete, marketable sound.”

Their waitress comes by with their drinks and David smiles, leaning back in his chair and tapping his fingers on the side of his glass. “If you can maintain that sound, the label agrees.”

Niall makes a fist bump, but drops his arm quickly, rubbing at his armpit, where Liam elbowed him.

“I’ve booked you in the studio next week. Make us a demo, and we’ll go from there.” He gets up, doing the middle button on his jacket. He looks out of place, with his slick-backed hair and navy blue Brooks Brothers suit. “And boys? Make it good.”

“It was nice to meet you all.” Dean drops a few bills on the table, before waving at them and following David out the door.

Harry sighs, sinking in his chair, feeling like his strings have been cut. The pressure, the worry, the adrenaline, it all oozes out of his toes and fingertips, leaving him exhausted and flat and aware of nothing but Louis’s elbow on the table touching his. Fuck.

***

Harry doesn’t know how much time – measured in bands or whiskey sours – passes as they bask in their success. Harry feels high, like he's riding a wave of music and alcohol and Louis, and he sways, leaning, automatically, towards Louis's sound.

Louis rubs his knuckles against Harry’s thigh as he talks, digging into the muscle in little, rhythmic circles that are somehow making Harry both numb and as aroused as he’s ever been. He feels like he’s teetering on the edge of something big and important, and if he doesn’t take a step off, he’s pretty sure Louis will push him. 

Harry's never been one to be outdone.

He reaches down, wrapping his fingers around Louis’s wrist under the table. He squeezes, something between a question and an order. “I’m gonna get some air. Louis?”

“Ahh.” Louis’s hand glitches against Harry’s thigh, and then he’s out of his seat, tugging on his wrist to pull Harry with him. “Air sounds good. Be back in a few.” Then, to be cheeky, “Don’t wait up,” thrown back at the table, over his shoulder and, fuck, Harry wants to catch the words, hold them to his chest, keep them there, safe and sound, until they're true.

“Jesus, Lou,” Harry breaths, the moment they step outside and Harry can breath again. It’s quieter out here, the sounds of the traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard, distant and hollow, like that moment right after he pops his ears after take-off. “Do you- do you know what you were doing to me in there?”

Louis’s eyes drop between Harry’s thighs and he says, “I’ve got a pretty good idea,” but it sounds less than cheeky, less than confident, just- less than, and Harry can’t stand it.

He presses forward until Louis’s back is pressed against the stucco wall of the Troubadour and Harry’s flush against him. “Your voice, your hands, the way you,” Harry’s voice cracks, low and blemished, “smile when you’re on stage. I can’t-” He shakes his head to encapsulate all the things he can’t deal with, and that he can’t put into words.

“Harry,” Louis whispers, his hands fluttering against the wall of the building, not reaching for Harry, but not pushing him away, either.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I met you.”

Louis groans and closes his eyes. Harry really hopes that’s an invitation.

“So, you better object now, if you’re going to- If you don’t want to- Because, in a minute, I’m not going to be able to stop and-”

Louis’s lips are on his. He’s tentative, his hands still loose in the air over Harry’s hips, his back arched awkwardly away from the building and his lips a little off-center in his haste. But, it feels like it did the first time Harry played the guitar, all of ten years old and sitting on a stool in the guitar shop in the Village, the most expensive Gibson he’s ever touched sitting in his lap. And it tastes like music, like the song they wrote together, just this morning, like harmonies and sand and the grass Louis smoked right before the show. 

Harry tilts his chin, reaching up to wrap his fingers in the fabric bunched at Louis’s shoulder, urging him to stand straighter, more comfortably, before Harry opens his mouth and steps off the cliff.

He’s pretty sure Louis jumps with him, if the way he sways into Harry’s body, slotting their mouths together, is anything to go by. It takes a moment for Louis to get his bearings, his tongue tentative at the corner of Harry’s mouth, at the spot that’s swallowed by Harry’s dimples when he’s smiling. The slow, gentle exploration feels intimate and Harry shivers. He’s been half-hard on adrenaline and his performance high since the moment they walked on stage, but now he’s hard on Louis, and it’s taking everything Harry has not to surge forward, press Louis against the wall, and rub off against him.

He can’t though. Not when Louis still isn’t touching him with anything but his lips, and his tongue- Fuck, his tongue tastes like whiskey and sweat and all the best love songs Harry’s ever heard. 

Harry moans, low and uncensored, and Louis pulls away.

“Sorry, I, just, sorry.” Louis lets out a little laugh, rough and cracked, licking his lips nervously, and Harry’s gone. As if there was ever any question.

“Don’t be sorry,” Harry whispers. At least, he’s pretty sure he whispers; it sounds loud against the street sounds and his heavy breathing. “Please, don’t be.”

“No, I mean-” Louis sighs. “Just, kiss me again, yeah?”

Harry does. Kisses him and kisses him and keeps on kissing him.

Until he can’t breath. His senses are overwhelming him, and he feels lightheaded. It might be the gig or the record deal or the smoke or the whiskey, or it might be the way Louis surrounds him without even touching him. Either way, he feels dizzy, light on his feet. He has to pull away, reaching one hand out to catch himself on the wall by Louis’s ear, pressing his forehead to Louis’s collarbone, trying, desperately, to focus on breathing rather than the smell of Louis’s skin.

“Haz?” Louis finally, finally, touches him, just a light, worried, hand between Harry’s shoulder blades. “Didn’t mean to suffocate you, mate, sorry. Don’t know my own power.”

Harry laughs, full of air bubbles and a hint of hysteria, against Louis’s shirt. “Was probably the whiskey.”

“Ahh, a lightweight?” His hand is still on Harry’s back, fingers moving in a gentle massage.

“Am not,” Harry defends himself, lifting his head. The streetlights are casting shadows around them and he’s finding it hard to see Louis’s face. “Fine, okay, it was a little bit you. But, just a bit.”

“Thanks. My ego appreciates it.”

Harry raises an eyebrow, pointedly, even though he hasn’t, actually, let himself look to see if Louis’s hard. Not when it’s so obvious that he won’t be allowed to touch. Not yet, at least. “Doesn’t look like your ego needs it.”

It startles a laugh out of Louis. “Fuck, you’re such a-”

“ - charmer?”

“ – lothario.”

“Nah,” Harry says, because he’s all for joking around, for lightening the mood a little when Louis so clearly needs to, but that’s a reputation he needs to dispel as thoroughly and quickly as possible. “I’m a one-man kinda guy.”

“That’s-” Louis swallows, his hand stilling on Harry’s back. “That’s good to know. Probably, I mean, maybe, if-”

“Hey, there you guys are, I’ve been looking-” The backdoor opens and Harry can see the moment that Liam sees them, takes in how close they’re standing, Louis’s hand, the way Harry’s lips are swollen and red, and Liam’s seen Harry snogged enough times to draw the more-or-less right conclusions. Liam shuffles his feet, rubbing the back of his head, and Harry’s seen Liam worried often enough to draw correct conclusions right back.

“You found us,” Harry tries for a laugh, taking a small step back from Louis.

“Right.” Liam shakes his head. “There’s, um, there’s a guy here for you, Louis.”

Louis’s brow furrows. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Said he knows you.” Liam shrugs, then looks at them, his eyes slanted. “So, I’ll just, go back inside, tell him you’re coming?”

It’s a question, but he doesn’t wait for them to answer.

The door slams shut behind Liam, and Harry jumps, the noises of the street filtering back into the space between him and Louis. The air feels humid and damp on his skin, the light artificial where it hits the wall above Louis’s head, and Louis’s body feels tense against his.

“I guess, ahh, I should go see who it is.”

“Yeah.” Harry shakes his head. He feels tight, like if he stretches, too far, he might tear a seam. “’Course.”

“But, ahh-” Louis reaches up to push a curl behind Harry’s ear. It’s light, gentle, just the brush of Louis’s fingertips, but it shivers its way all the way through Harry’s body. “After, we do some more of this, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“The kissing, I mean.”

“Got that, yeah.” Harry grins, forcing himself to take a step back, allow Louis room to move. “And, yeah, I’m up for more kissing.”

“Good.” Louis grins. The real kind that crinkles the corners of his eyes. “So, ahh-”

“Inside. Right.” It takes an effort to tear himself away, but he buries the image of pushing Louis up against the wall, and leads the way inside. He grins when he feels Louis’s hand on the back of his neck, his thumb rubbing the top of Harry’s spine, and it’s not exactly where he wants Louis’s hands but, honestly, for now he’s happy just to have Louis touching him. Period. Full stop.

When they step inside, though, Louis’s hand freezes for a short, cold, moment, before he snaps it away, his whole body going rigid and straight behind Harry’s.

“Wha-?” Harry gets out, before Louis is pushing past him, his shoulder hard when it brushes against Harry’s.

“What are you doing here?” Louis asks, his voice low, threatening, and Harry’s met a lot of Louises – happy Louis, prankster Louis, insecure Louis, stage-persona Louis, just-been-kissed Louis – but he hasn’t met - didn’t, even, think he existed – this iteration.

“Hey.” The man spreads his arms. He’s older, hair greying at the temples, but he has piercing blue eyes, so like Louis’s that Harry trips over his own feet as he nears the table. “I just want to talk.”

“That’s never what you want.”

“Don’t be like that, Louis, come on.” He reaches out, wraps his fingers around Louis’s wrist, and Harry doesn’t miss the way Louis flinches, his shoulders turning inwards, as if trying to protect himself from something no one else can see. “Introduce me to your friends.”

Louis’s eyes flash, for a slice of an instant, to Harry’s, before he looks back at the ground. “No, thanks, I think- yeah, they’re celebrating, if you want to talk to me, just, let’s go, yeah?”

“Whatever you think is best.”

“I think we should go, yeah.” Louis turns back to the table, but he doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes, not Harry’s, not Zayn’s, not even Niall’s, and no one avoids meeting Niall’s eyes. “Don’t wait for me, yeah? I’ll meet you back at camp.”

And then he’s gone. Leaving his denim jacket on the back of his chair and the smell of his skin on Harry’s lips.

***

When Harry wakes with the sun the next morning, Louis still isn’t back. Harry spends the hours between dawn and full-on morning staring at his notebook, strumming his guitar and trying to write. But after a dozen times through the first two verses of “Brandy,” he gives up and starts singing songs about heartache and loss, low and quiet, as if the sea can swallow his feelings along with his words.

First, an acoustic version of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone” that he sings, deep in this chest, still a little sleep gruff.

_Wonder this time where she’s gone  
Wonder if she’s gone to stay_

It flows, seamlessly, into a melancholic solo version of The Beatles’ “For No One.” 

_Your day breaks, your mind aches_  
There will be time when all the things she said will fill your head  
You won’t forget her 

Then, finally, a rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” sung high in his vocal range, as he thinks about that concert, years ago, when he decided that this was it for him. Music, LA, the stage and song, acoustic and truthful, political and personal.

_I’m a thinkin' and a wonderin', walking down the road_  
I once loved a woman, a child I am told  
I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul  
But don’t think twice, it’s alright 

“Well if this isn’t the most melodramatic sight I’ve ever seen.” Liam chuckles, taking a seat next to Harry on the sand. He’s wearing nothing but pants and an American-flag vest, and he rests his elbows on his raised knees, settling into the quiet of the morning with an ease that Harry wishes he had.

“Fuck off.”

Liam pushes against Harry’s shoulder, and Harry doesn’t move, just presses his side into Liam’s.

“Hope I didn’t wake you.”

Liam shrugs. “Still a little high from last night. Was hard to sleep.”

Harry smiles. It doesn’t take as much effort as he thought it would to unbury his memories of the show from under whatever happened with Louis after. “It was spectacular, wasn’t it?”

“For shit.” Liam rubs his eyes with his left hand, not bothering to stifle a yawn around his lingering excitement and his morning breath. “So, Zayn has to head into town today, check the mailbox, pick up a few things. I volunteered you to go with him.”

“I’m kinda tired.” Harry fakes a yawn, turning his head into Liam’s shoulder and breathing against it. “Was thinking of just staying around camp today. Do a little writing, you know? Maybe sketch a little. I’ve been thinking of a new tattoo.” He holds up his wrist. “Right here, along the bone and-”

“Nah uh.” Liam shakes his head, his chin brushing against Harry’s hair as he interrupts Harry’s purposeful ramblings. “I don’t fall for that anymore, remember?”

Harry sighs, pulling away and looking, forlornly, at his notebook, still open on the sand by his knee. “I really am thinking about the tattoo.”

Liam glances down at Harry’s wrist. “And we can talk about that. But, I’m not gonna let you mope around all day today, not after how great you were last night. I’m cutting this off before it begins.”

And, sometimes, Harry forgets how well Liam knows him. He loses count of how many times Liam’s come home to find him moping on the couch after a bad date, and fed him pizza and Charlie Chaplin movies. 

“Speaking of.” Liam wrinkles his nose, the skin of his brow furrowing. “You’re starting to smell. Race you to the water?”

“I smell like roses,” Harry says, before he raises his arm and sniffs and, yeah, well, Liam has a point. About both of them. “Fine. On the count of three?”

“One.” Liam stands, pulling his vest over his head. “Two.” He bends his knee, ready to run.

“Hey, wait, I’m-” Harry scrambles to put his guitar aside and stand without getting sand in his eyes.

Liam winks at him. “Three.”

“Not fair,” Harry calls as he steps out of his pants as quickly as he can, before taking off after Liam. He’s not as fast, even if Liam hadn’t had a head start, but he’s pretty good at playing dirty. He throws himself into the water, wrapping his arms around Liam’s waist and pulling them both into the surf.

“Shit,” Liam shivers in the cold water. “You cheat.”

“Never.” Harry wraps his legs around Liam’s waist and Liam rolls his eyes.

“You’re naked, Haz.” A complaint he undermines by wrapping his hands around Harry’s forearms and holding him steady as the low morning swells break against their chests, reaching all the way to Liam’s armpits.

Harry laughs, holding onto Liam as he dips his head back to dunk his hair in the water. He’s pretty sure Zayn has some of that biodegradable shampoo lying around somewhere.

Liam’s already a step ahead of him, per usual, as he holds up the bottle. Harry has no idea where he was hiding it, earlier. Or, maybe Harry was too lost and morose to notice it. Probably the latter.

“Turn around.” 

Harry loosens himself down to the ground, turning around and tipping his head back so Liam can lather his hair in shampoo. It feels good, Liam’s fingers digging into his scalp, a little hard and a little pruny already, but amazing.

“Duck.”

Harry does, swirling his head around in the ocean, rinsing the shampoo out with his fingers, before lifting his head and shaking the water out of his eyes. He reaches for the shampoo, coating his hands with it before starting on Liam’s head. Liam doesn’t have a lot of hair, barely enough to make it worth it, but Harry takes his time, massaging behind Liam’s ears and at the back of his neck, where he knows Liam’s nerves pool during gigs.

Harry glances back, quickly, to make sure that their camp is still quiet, before he finally starts. “I just wish that I knew what was going on, you know?”

Liam groans in pleasure, tipping his head back into Harry’s hands. “Maybe you should try talking to him. Instead of, you know, snogging him in the back of the club.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Liam slits one eye open, risking the soap in favor of glaring at him. “This has been building since the moment you met. It wasn’t ‘spur-of-the-moment’ anything.”

“Well, yeah.” Harry sighs, his shoulders slumping. “But, not like that. I mean, I don’t even know if he’s interested.”

Liam doesn’t open his eyes again, but Harry can tell he’s rolling them under his eyelids.

“I’m serious, Li. Sometimes, I think, yeah, for sure, he’s all over me. But, then, he pushes me away or talks about some girl he had in the City and-” Harry shakes his head, pressing, lightly on Liam’s shoulders. “Rinse.”

Liam sinks into the water for a moment, before coming up and blowing water at Harry like a beluga. Harry splutters, wiping the salt water out of his ear, tilting his head and shaking a bit to get it out. It sends water flying into Liam’s eyes and Harry stops. “Sorry.”

Liam rolls his eyes again. “You’re too good. Seriously. You’re gonna get hurt someday.”

Harry stares at him.

“No, I mean, really hurt. Like-” Liam shakes his head. The corners of his eyes are wrinkled, a little sad, a little worried, and it hurts that Harry’s the one who put them there. “The day I met you, I told you I had a band and you just quit your job, like, the next day. You trusted me and you had no reason to.”

“You’re face is very trustworthy.”

“I’m trying to be serious here,” as if Harry hasn’t figured that out by every tensed muscle and the fierce way Liam’s blinking at him.

“Yeah, I know, sorry, but, it worked out, di’n it?”

“Yeah, but, we lucked out, finding each other.”

Harry can agree with that. He does, each and every day, thanking some god he doesn’t believe in that it all worked out. Liam and Niall and Zayn and – maybe? – now Louis, and what are the chances of that? Of them all finding each other, making music together the way they do, and getting along so famously.

“And-” Liam dips his head, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck. “You don’t love me.”

Harry can’t protest fast enough. “I do.” 

“No, no, I know.” Liam holds up his hands. “But, not what I mean.”

Harry sighs. “Yeah.”

“I just worry that, someday, you’re gonna love someone like that and you’re going to give yourself as completely as you do and I just, Harry, I’m sorry, but, I worry it could go badly and I hate that I’m even thinking like that, but-” Liam shrugs.

Harry doesn’t know what to say. Harry know that Liam knows him. Better, probably than anyone except maybe Gemma. It's different, though, hearing it like that. Things Harry hasn’t even been thinking about, even though he knows they’re true the minute Liam says them. So true, and, Jesus, it doesn’t change a thing, but, just knowing that Liam cares, like this. It matters.

“Thank you,” he says, softly, not knowing how else to express it.

Above them, a seagull squawks. 

Liam sighs through his nose and Harry looks down, at Liam’s reflection, distorted and rocky in the waves. “It’s just, this time-”

“It’s different,” Liam finishes for him. “Yeah, I figured. Someday always has to come, yeah?”

Harry chuckles. It comes out a little watery. “Great lyric, that.”

“Write me a song and we’ll sing it. Just, don’t make it a break-up song, yeah? We’ve got a good thing going, all of us.”

“A love song, then?”

Liam wraps his elbow around Harry’s neck, pushing him into the water. It surprises Harry for a moment, but then he gets his bearings and kicks out his foot, wrapping it around Liam’s knee and pulling him down into the water with him. 

Harry holds him under as he wipes the salt water out of his own eyes. “Last one back to the beach has to cook breakfast.”

***

If Harry has to be on Liam-appointed errand duty, at least he’s doing them with Zayn. Zayn, who’s quiet and introspective and is happy just to have Harry sitting next to him in the passenger seat, futzing around with Niall’s traditional Irish mandolin. The mandolin that, for some reason, Harry still can’t get the hang of, despite hours of lessons, sitting around the fire and playing until his fingers are red and bleeding. 

“You’re getting better,” Zayn observes, as he pulls their VW bus into the local post office.

Harry snorts. “Thanks for lying. It does actually make me feel better.” 

He doesn’t know why he can’t get this. Maybe his fingers are just bigger than Niall’s. Or the instrument’s only tuned for Irish ears. Or maybe Harry just has a block. He doesn’t know, but it’s pretty frustrating. 

“Wasn’t lying mate.” Zayn reaches over to pat Harry’s shoulder as he opens his door and slips out. “Just think about how bad you must have been before.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better anymore,” Harry calls out his open window to Zayn’s back.

Zayn doesn’t turn as he shouts over his shoulder, “Wasn’t supposed to.”

Harry very consciously does not think about how bad he used to be at the mandolin. He does, however, think a lot about his conversation with Liam. But mostly, if he’s honest, his thoughts of Louis soar above the melody of his mandolin, as choppy and confused and imperfect as the notes. Wondering where Louis is. Wondering if Louis is in LA, thinking about where Harry is, what he’s doing, what he’s thinking about, wondering if Harry is thinking about what happened last night and questioning why Louis pulled away so quickly, how they went from everything Harry’s been wanting to nothing in the flash of a second.

And, yeah, Harry can’t even make sense of his own thoughts anymore. He should probably stop and, like, focus on something else. Like this damn mandolin. 

“This is gonna take a while, so, you can keep making bad music or-” Zayn offers as he parks the car at their second stop.

“No, I give up.” Harry puts the mandolin in the backseat and climbs out. “I’m coming with.”

It’s an art studio, the kind Zayn likes, all bright colors and massive paintings. No canvasses or sculptures or pottery or any of that shit, just splotches of greens and pinks and yellows splashed across the walls and the ceiling.

The floor is covered in drops and Harry steps in a fresh mix of sunset oranges and purples as he stops in front of two massive birds. They’re spray-painted in the middle of the wall to his left, pale blue seagulls or ravens or something, Harry’s not really sure. They’re flying over a tropical scene of palm trees and sand, one with a pineapple in his beak, the other a ‘love’ banner. 

“You like them?”

Harry jumps, turning on his heel, spreading paint over the sole of his shoe as he turns. “They’re beautiful.”

She snorts.

“In a,” Harry shrugs, “dangerous kind of way.”

“Artists,” she says under her breath, loud enough for him to hear, as if she, herself, isn’t sitting cross-legged on the floor, a paintbrush in her hand and another three in her lap.

“Musician, actually. I’m just here with a friend. He went-” Harry waves at the door in the back of the room where Zayn disappeared the moment they walked in. “Somewhere.”

“Friends are the worst, aren’t they?”

“Um,” Harry frowns, digging his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, “I quite like mine.”

“No need to sound so apologetic about it.” She shakes her head, her pale pink hair catching in the bright artificial light of the studio. 

Harry feels off-put, unsteady, like he might just trip and fall over this conversation, so he turns back to the birds. “What, ahh, what kinds of birds are they?”

“Hmm?” She’s already gone back to painting- whatever it is she’s painting, something Aztec or Native in origin, he thinks. “Oh, they’re sparrows.”

“Huh.” Harry knows nothing about sparrows. Doesn’t think he could even have named sparrows as a type of bird, if pressed.

She laughs, and it rings through the open space of the warehouse, echoing off his body and making him shiver. “Sparrows are the coolest birds around.” 

She says it like a challenge, like he might have some other favorite kind of bird that he’ll defend to the death. As if he cares that much about birds at all. Which is weird.

“Why?”

“Sparrows are free. Unbound by rules and conventions, masters of their own destiny.”

Harry likes the sound of that. Of freedom, the way he feels every morning when he wakes up on the beach, so far from the place he grew up, even farther from the place he was born. Bound by the sea and by music, but nothing else.

“But- and this is the best part.” She waves her brush, splashing yellow drops of paint across the floor and the knees of her jeans. “They also symbolize commitment to someone else. A specific someone else. Freedom through that bonding to another soul.”

“Love,” Harry breathes.

“Yeah.”

Harry looks back at the birds. They seem so much more, now, their lines and the curves of their beaks lifting off the wall, calling to him.

“Sailors used to get swallows tattooed on their arms, to symbolize the freedom of the sea, but also their connection to it. Most people mix them up, swallows and sparrows.” _Those people are idiots_ is more than implied in the way she scoffs over the words. 

Harry nods, as sagely as he can when he’s absolutely sure that he fits in her ‘idiot’ category. “Stupid mistake, that.”

“Right.” She laughs. At him, he’s pretty sure.

“Do you mind if I, ahh-?” Harry pulls his notebook out of his bag, waving it in her direction. “If I draw them, like, as a model? While I’m waiting for my friend.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks.” He sits on the floor, his legs spread out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He opens his notebook to the blank page after the scribbled “Brand” lyrics, lying it in his lap and sticking his tongue in the corner of his mouth in concentration.

He has to strain to see them, all light blue curves and circles, carefree and open, happy. But, if sparrows are supposed to symbolize love’s contradiction between freedom and commitment- 

He starts sketching in thick, dark lines, using the edge of his pencil to fill them in. He adds lines, angular and straight, to the curves of the wings and the eyes, just a few, just enough to make them edgier. Literally.

“Hey.” 

Harry jumps when he feels Zayn’s hand on the back of his neck. His pencil skids across his page and he frowns at it.

“Sorry,” Zayn apologizes, nodding at the birds in Harry’s notebook. “Those are sweet.”

“Sparrows.”

“Ahh.” Zayn purses his lips, like he knows exactly what sparrows symbolize, in general, and exactly what sparrows symbolize, in Harry’s case in particular. “Makes sense.”

“Hmm.”

“So, ahh, I’m ready if you’re-”

“Yeah, yeah.” Harry closes his notebook, shoving it into his bag as he stands. And Zayn starts laughing. “What?”

“You’ve got paint all over.” He motions at Harry’s ass and Harry glances at the floor, at the wet spots of green and purple now imprinted to the contours of his denim jeans. He sighs.

“Amateur,” the girl calls after them from her seat by the far wall, loud and brash and good-natured.

***

After he makes their beans-and-hot-dog dinner, Harry spends the evening lounging in front of the fire. He sits on the sand, resting his back against one of the logs by Niall’s legs, shirtless and letting the fire soak his skin warm and red. Every so often, Niall catches his shoulder with the edge of his guitar, and Harry spares him a quick glare, before he goes back to ignoring him in favor of the sketchpad open in his lap. 

“You want?” Zayn puts his knee on the sand as he reaches over to Harry and Niall, a blunt loose in his fingers. 

Harry would normally pass, partly for Liam’s sake, mostly for his own, but he could use a little time out of his own head at the moment. So, he reaches for it, ignoring Zayn’s raised eyebrow, the worried crease in Liam’s forehead, and the way Niall jabs his toe into Harry’s back with a happy little, “young Haz, joining the party tonight,” that Harry assumes is accompanied by a fist bump, but doesn’t look back to check.

He takes four long draws, trying, and failing, not to cough as he blows the smoke out between his rounded lips, before handing it back to Niall.

“Thanks, mate.”

It takes a couple of minutes, but then the edges of Harry’s world fade, blurring together so that everything seems curved and continuous. He glances down at the sparrows he’s been drawing, and they look smoother now, definitely like two birds in love and, ugh, these are the kinds of thoughts Harry isn’t supposed to be having.

“Alright?” 

It takes Harry a long moment to realize that Niall’s talking to him, that Niall’s hand is on his shoulder, pinching, hard, into his collarbone. It takes him even longer to remember that he’s supposed to respond to questions like that, and he glances up, giving him a smile. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” he says, finally.

His voice feels a little hoarse, and a lot loud, and it’s possible that he hasn’t said anything for a while. Grass tends to render him nonverbal.

If Zayn knew that, he would make Harry smoke more often.

Harry snorts.

“What’s so funny?” Zayn asks.

And, right, it’s possible Harry only made that joke in his head. He doesn’t really know anymore. “Nothing,” he says, and, above him, Niall snorts.

“Hey, Niall, how about something we can dance to?” Zayn calls, and Niall strums for a few quite moments – or, Harry thinks it’s a few moments, feels like minutes to him – before settling on Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” which is, possibly, the most ridiculous, saccharine love song of all time.

Zayn, who has been huddled with Liam over a cup of coffee, stands, holding his hand out to Liam. “Dance with me, babe?”

Harry watches, and maybe it’s the weed slowing his brain down, but Liam takes a long, long time to answer. He stares at Zayn’s fingers, his eyes dark and almost – worried? fearful? hopeful? Harry can’t tell – before he finally shakes himself out of it and pulls himself to his feet.

He has no idea how he’s missed it before, but now that he’s noticed, he can’t stop cataloging it all. The way Liam angles his body towards Zayn’s as they dance. Liam’s almost-nervousness when he sings, even though, of all of them, Liam’s always been the least nervous. How, though, Liam pushes through it, strikes a pose, takes on a fake deep voice during his lines just because it makes Zayn laugh.

“I got flowers in the spring. I got you to wear my ring,” Liam sings, and, when Zayn points to his ring finger, Liam laughs, bending his head to cover the tinge of red on his cheeks. It could be the fire, or the dancing, but Harry’s got other ideas, now.

“And when I’m sad,” Zayn sings back, his voice high and timid, blinking his eye lashes as he flutters them against his chest bone coquettishly, “you’re a clown. And if I get scared, you’re always around.”

“So let them say your hair’s too long, ‘cause I don’t care. With you I can’t go wrong.”

“Then put your little hand in mine,” Zayn holds his hand out and, this time, Liam takes it, twirling Zayn under his arm “There ain’t no hill or maintain we can’t climb.”

“Babe, I got you babe, I got you babe,” they sing, together, before Zayn collapses against Liam’s side laughing so hard tears fall from his eyes. Liam holds him, rubbing the skin between Zayn’s jeans and his t-shirt with his thumb.

Harry can’t look away, even as he claps and puts his fingers in his mouth to wolf-whistle. Behind him, Niall slaps his hand against his guitar and yells out, “Encore, encore.”

“Oh, lord, I don’t know that I can.” Zayn bends over, holding the stitch in his side. His eyes are gleaming and his face is red from laughing. “That tired me out, mate.”

“Yeah,” Liam agrees, as he wipes his eyes on the hem of his shirt. “I think I’m off to bed.”

Harry can get behind that idea. His eyes are feeling scratchy and tired, full of smoke from the fire and the weed, and his head is starting to feel heavy under the weight of all the new information he received today. It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while Liam manages to surprise him into exhaustion, and today has definitely been one of those days. Twice over.

“Me too. I’m beat.”

“Fine, fine, break up the party before it even gets started,” Niall grumbles, as he starts putting his guitar away.

Harry gathers up his notebook, pen, t-shirt, and his own guitar, which has lain unused all evening. The air is cooler and quieter the closer he gets to his tent, still fuzzy around the edges, and he has to fumble with his tent flap for a while before he gets inside.

He’s pretty unsteady as he strips to his pants, and is relieved when he settles between his sleeping bags without falling over or, like, tipping his whole tent over. He considers, just for a moment, reaching his hand into his pants, thinking about that kiss, about Louis’s body almost pressed against his, and taking the edge off the low strum of arousal he’s been feeling since he walked on stage 24 hours ago.

He falls asleep before he even completes the thought.

***

He doesn’t know how long he sleeps before the sound of a zipper wakes him. His whole head feels full and fuzzy, like there’s a bag of sand settled at the top of his spine, leaking grains of sand through his veins, rendering him slow and gritty.

“Wha-?” He asks, before he manages to lift his head enough to see the bright light of a flashlight sticking through his open tent flap.

“Sorry.” Louis’s voice is thick, accented, low, just like Harry remembers it. “Sorry, didn’a mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay,” Harry whispers, through the grit in his throat. It is so much more than okay, because Louis is here, in Santa Barbara, in camp, in Harry’s tent, and Harry has never experienced something so okay in his life.

Harry watches as Louis strips to his t-shirt and pants, balling up the rest of his clothes and leaving them in a corner, on top of Harry’s. It feels practiced and intimate and Harry can’t look away, even to look at Louis, who is half naked and slipping under the sleeping bags next to Harry.

“Hazza?”

“Hmm?” Harry turns his head, face to face with Louis, who laughs, low and under his breath, nothing like his usual boisterous, strong, full-body laughs, but Harry’s missed every version of it.

“Are you baked?”

“Yeah.” Harry shrugs. Then, because he doesn’t have much of a filter at the moment, if he ever does when it comes to Louis, “I was missing you.”

Louis smiles, small, sweet, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Can we-?” He pauses, blinks, as if his eyes got caught on Harry’s for a moment. “Can we just sleep?”

Harry nods. “Yeah, yeah, anything you want.”

Louis rolls over, onto his side, before sliding back and fitting himself against Harry’s chest. Harry freezes, probably for too long, before he wraps his arm around Louis’s chest, spreading his palm on Louis’s stomach, over the thin fabric of his undershirt.

“Thanks,” Louis whispers, as he flips off the flashlight and pillows his head on both of his hands.

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna chat about these silly boys, folk music, or anything else, please comment here or find me on [tumblr!](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/) I'll be sharing all kinds of pictures and songs and fic snippets there on my [A Case of You](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/tagged/a-case-of-you) tag, so come follow me.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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